The Predators Legacy (1987 – 2010)

With the Blu-ray release of the new Predators movie looming ever closer, we’ve decided o have a look back on ole Lobster Face with the Predators Legacy in full while trying to contain our excitement!

The original, released back in 1987, directed by John McTiernan and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, went on to become one of the hallmarks in the science fiction/horror genre, along with Aliens (1986) combining elements of action/adventure audiences were most used to seeing in movies like Rambo (1985) and Commando (1985). Its story centred on a team sent to rescue hostages held by a guerrilla group in Central America, but when the team are picked off one by one by an unseen extraterrestrial life form it becomes a case of survival of the fittest as our hero Arnie takes on the predator.

Originally titled “Hunter” with Jean-Claude Van Damme set to play the monster but as the concept changed for how it would look, he was replaced. Schwarzenegger lost 25 pounds while making the film which added to his lean look. Filming was very demanding, together with the cast and crew suffering from diarrhea due to bad water at the hotel, Schwarzenegger has to swim in very cold water and spent a very long time covered in mud for filming of the final battle.

The predator’s blood – a goopy substance with the color of Mountain Dew – was made on-set using a mixture of the liquid from inside glow sticks, and KY jelly. For it’s special effects, which included the predator’s ability to become invisible and see in thermal version, the movie was noimated for an Academy Award for Visual Effects but lost out to Innerspace.

After pulling in nearly $100 million at the box office, Predators went on to spawn a sequel, Predator 2, released in 1990 and directed by Stephen Hopkins (A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, 1990 and The Reaping, 2007) starring Danny Glover, Gary Busey, and Bill Paxton.

Although initially asked to reprise his role as Dutch in the sequel, Schwarzenegger declined, citing that the idea to take the Predator out of the jungle and into a city setting was a bad idea. The sequel went ahead without his involvement and he did Terminator 2: Judgment Day instead.

With an entirely new cast except for Kevin Peter Hall (the Predator) and Elpida Carrillo (Anna Utani), this film brings the aliens to the city of Los Angeles in 1997 right in the middle of a heat-wave and a gang war between the police and Colombian and Jamaican gangs. When members of the gangs are found slaughtered, the police believe a new player might be in the game. As Lieutenant Mike Harrigan (played by Danny Glover) investigates the murders, he eventually comes realise what he’s up against but Special Agent Peter Keyes (Gary Busey) has been tracking the creature for the past 10 years since it attacked a team in the jungle and now plans to capture it for study. This plan fails when the Predator disposed of Keyes and his entire team and Harrigan is left on his own to take on the monster.

The film received mixed responses and only managed to take in $57 million at the box office and it would take 14 years before the Predator would return to the screen again with the crossover fans had been dying to see; Alien Vs. Predator (2004).

Set in 2004 and directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, AVP is ties in the mythology of these two beastly creatures and puts a team of archaeologists right in the middle of them during hunting season in a pyramid deep beneath the ice in Antarctica. Using the dictum of “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” Alexa Woods (played by Sanaa Lathan) sets up an alliance with the Predator in hope of stopping the Aliens from reaching the surface.

Although fans might have been hoping to see Arnie and Sigourney teaming up for this one, the movie does have very likeable characters including the intelligent and pragmatic Alexa and the handsome but ultimately hopeless Sebastian (Italian model and actor Raoul Bova). Lance Henriksen is definitely a familiar face, as Charles Bishop Weyland, a billionaire who hires the team to investigate the mysterious pyramid and who fans would recognise as Bishop, the android in the second and third Alien films.

Serving as a sequel to Predator 2 and a prequel to Alien (1979), AVP establishes a firm link between the two series’ without contradicting the storylines that came before (something which failed with Freddy Vs. Jason, 2003). Although disliked by critics, it did surprisingly well at the box office making over $172 million worldwide and opening the doorway for another sequel.

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007), directed by the brothers Strause, pucks up where the last one left off, with the Predator ship leaving Earth but infested with Aliens, it crashes back on Earth in the forest just outside of Colorado. AVPR introduces us to a cast of new characters within smalltwon America as they fight not only the Aliens and Predators but also the Predalien hybrid. Put that together with the US Army launching a nuclear strike on the town, AVPR is an adrenalin fuelled movie, fast paced and action packed but unfortunately fails to add something new to the mythology of the creatures apart from the Predalien. Taking in nearly $129 million, AVPR did lower than expected during the Christmas and New Year period.

Its ending is left open for another follow-up but with the re-boot of the Predator franchise, this seems highly unlikely.

Predators (2010) is technically Predator 3 without any hints of the Alien franchise, so it’s all back to basics with an authentic feel to the original movie. Directed by Nimród Antal, produced by Robert Rodriguez and starring Adrien Brody, Topher Grace, Laurence Fishburne, Mahershalalhashbaz Ali and Derek Mears. The story follows Royce (Adrien Brody), a mercenary who is reluctantly leadings a group of elite warriors who come to realise they’ve been brought together on an alien planet… as prey. With the notable exception of a disgraced physician, they are all cold-blooded killers – mercenaries, Yakuza, convicts, death squad members – human “predators” that are now being systemically hunted and eliminated by a new breed of alien predators.

With Predators set on an alien planet, this is the first time in the Predators series the events don’t take place on Earth, so our team of warriors will come face to face with all sorts of other worldly things as well as the Predators themselves.