Shane Black‘s “Predator” debuted to an estimated $24 million, which put it toward the lower end of the $23 million-$32 million projections. Since the movie cost at least $88 million to make, and opened in 4,037 theaters, that’s … not that great. Its opening ranked third in the “Predator” franchise (not adjusted for inflation), behind “Alien vs. Predator“ ($38.2 million) and “Predators“ ($24.7 million).
“The Predator” wasn’t helped by lackluster reviews (from both critics and audiences) and a C+ Cinemascore. Plus, there was all the publicity about the registered sex offender. And of course Hurricane Florence.
Still, “The Predator” took No. 1. “The Nun“ — which opened to $53.5 million last week — took second this week with $18.2 million. That’s a drop of 66.2 percent from its huge debut.
“A Simple Favor“ took third with $16.5 million. Since that Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively film only cost about $20 million, and was released on fewer screens than “The Predator” and “The Nun,” that’s a solid opening. It surpassed its more limited projections of $12M-$15M. It’s also getting strong reviews (from both critics and audiences) and landed a B+ Cinemascore. According to Deadline, studios consider it a “word of mouth” movie that should have legs. We’ll see.
Lionsgate Films
After the top three, the box office take drops pretty dramatically. “White Boy Rick“ — starring Matthew McConaughey — opened in fourth place with about $8.8 million, off a $29 million budget. That’s rough. It was very closely followed by “Crazy Rich Asians“ picking up another $8.7 million.
The only sci-fi franchise more maligned than “Alien” may be “Predator.” At least “Alien” has two fully great installments before deteriorating; “Predator” has the classic original and an underrated, largely unrelated sequel (“Predators”), but most of the series’ post-1987 highlights are limited to the crossover films with, yep, “Alien.”
All of which is why there is so much to be excited about in “The Predator,” a movie eager to acknowledge a broader mythology of extraterrestrial hunters and the humans unlucky enough to run afoul of them, but mostly just interested in exploring an absolute banger of a premise in the in-depth and relentlessly entertaining way that it deserves. With the film shuffling into theaters soon, it felt appropriate to shut off the cloaking device that seems to be shrouding its arrival, and set the timer on a few essential reasons that are certain to explode your interest in the film like a small nuclear warhead strapped to your forearm.
1. The Premise
Fox
“A young boy (Jacob Tremblay) accidentally triggers an alert that brings the Predators back to Earth. The universe’s most lethal hunters have genetically upgraded themselves with DNA from other alien species.” This is the official plot line revealed by Fox, and showcased briefly in the film’s trailers. Especially after Tremblay survived the horrors his character dealt with in “Room,” fending off herculean aliens with advanced technology should be a piece of cake.
2. The Filmmakers
Even if that concept doesn’t sell you immediately, what makes it irresistible is the fact that it was directed by Shane Black (“The Nice Guys”) and written by Black and Fred Dekker (“Monster Squad”). These are guys who know how to deconstruct machismo, and have fun with a premise that teeters on the edge between cool and corny.
Black co-starred in the first “Predator,” so he has real bona fides with this franchise, and especially after tackling “Iron Man 3,” he seems more and more sure-footed when it comes to mounting fun, fast-paced action that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
3. The Mythology
It’s yet unclear how much of the previous films Black directly drew upon to build what has been described as a more “intimate… event-based” movie, something evoking the original “Predator” in terms of both its exciting self-containment and its whiffs of a larger universe, just outside the frame. But the casting of Jake Busey as Sean Keyes, the son of “Predator 2” character Peter Keyes, indicates that at the very least, Black respected the franchise to integrate a few Easter eggs into his story.
4. The Disgruntled Science Teacher
This is apparently how Olivia Munn’s character is described in press materials, and quite frankly, we are 100 percent here to see how that plays out against a Predator. (Knowing our high-school science teacher, that Predator better have his homework done — or else.)
5. The Really, Really Great Cast Alongside Olivia Munn
Black cast Tremblay, Munn, Travante Rhodes (“Moonlight”), Keegan Michael Key (“Keanu”), Boyd Holbrook (“Logan”), Thomas Jane (“1922”), Alfie Allen (“Game of Thrones”), and Sterling K. Brown (“Black Panther”) among several others.
It’s not just that the cast is diverse and eclectic; it’s that there’s a murderer’s row of talent on screen all at once, promising the perfect sort of alchemy for a Shane Black project — something that oozes a deeply self-aware acknowledgment of action movie archetypes and conventions, but comments on them so skillfully that it’s still fun to watch in earnest.
6. The Super Predator
Fox
I’ve gotta be honest: other than the fact that this beast is twice as big as the other Predator in the trailer and throws it around like a rag doll, I don’t know what this term means.
But given the bullying physique of that species, the series’ history with bigger and bigger adversaries for our unfortunate human protagonists and Black’s razor-sharp creativity, I’m guessing that it spells doom for a lot of secondary characters, and a lot of entertainment value for the audience.
7. The Sequels…?
There seems to be some dispute between the good folks at Fox and Black over the future of this franchise, but not long ago, producer John Davis said that he wants the filmmaker to come back and direct not one but two more movies in this cycle, further building on the world created in 1987 by Jim and John Thomas.
Black wisely was reluctant to put the cart in front of the horse, but if this film delivers, it sets the stage for — if nothing else — two more possible Shane Black movies, which is a good thing, whether they’re set in this world or not.
Olivia Munn seems to be getting a lot of flak for doing the right thing.
In the promotional tour for “The Predator,” the actress has been opening up about going to Fox with concerns about a registered sex offender’s cameo in the movie. The scene with Steven Wilder Striegel was subsequently cut, but Munn recently said that director Shane Black (a friend of Striegel’s) and her co-stars have been shunning her.
On Tuesday’s “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” Munn told the host she was also criticized by Fox for informing those cast members.
“When I did call my co-stars, I got chastised the next day by people in the studio for telling them and, why am I not just keeping quiet? It’s all going to be OK, it got deleted, what’s the big deal?”
After Munn spoke up and the scene was cut, several cast members backed out of promotional appearances (which she said she was contractually obligated to do) at the Toronto International Film Festival. She and 11-year-old Jacob Tremblay were the only ones to show up at a Hollywood Reporter interview. Munn also noted that Black had yet to reach out to her on the subject.
As Munn told DeGeneres, “My castmembers, nobody said anything to me about it. Nobody talked to me. Nobody reached out that whole day.
“At first I thought maybe it’s because they just don’t know what to say, they want to stay out of the way. But privately I did feel iced out and I think that’s what’s really important for people to understand is when you see something, you have to say something. However, it’s not going to be easy and there will be people that just get mad at you for not playing the game.”
Since TIFF, Sterling K. Brown has tweeted his support of Munn and Keegan-Michael Key’s publicist explained his absence at those appearances as due to the Jewish holiday. Boyd Holbrook also issued a statement Monday saying, “I am proud of Olivia for the way that she handled a difficult and alarming situation.”
And Munn isn’t ready to stop speaking out anytime soon.
“I think that people expected me to be quiet because it’s my movie, but the truth is I don’t care,” she said. “I don’t care if this movie gave me all the money in the world and all the power. If it cost one person’s life, they can take it. I don’t want this career.”
Is there such a thing as too muchShane Black in a Shane Black movie?
I wouldn’t have guessed it was possible — even in the late 1980s and ‘90s, when movies like the Black-scripted “The Last Boy Scout” were pilloried for being too brutal, aggressive and vulgar (and that was after “Lethal Weapon” and its sequel, the movies that made him such a hot property, were already considered wildly over the top). But “The Predator,” a combination sequel and soft reboot, feels like a throwback to that earlier, more simplistic era. The film is a hyper-masculine cocktail of breakneck storytelling, graphic violence and mean-spirited humor where the ingredients this time around seem either off or just wildly inconsistent. This is especially disappointing since it follows Black’s remarkable, measured comeback with “Iron Man 3” and “The Nice Guys.”
Simply bursting with too many ideas for what deliberately aims to be a small and self-contained story, the filmmaker’s latest is a muddled effort that never hits the highs of the (admittedly perfect) original film, though a terrific cast and more than a few clever surprises are sure to keep audiences on their toes (and on the edge of their seats).
Fox
Boyd Holbrook (“Logan”) plays Quinn McKenna, an Army sniper who encounters a sport-hunting alien while on a covert mission and absconds from the scene with a helmet and a handful of otherworldly trinkets that he inadvertently sends to his autistic son Rory (Jacob Tremblay, “Room”). Intercepted by Will Traeger (Sterling K. Brown, TV”s “This Is Us”), the head of a top secret organization investigating our extraterrestrial adversaries, McKenna is brought to a military facility and thrown in the stockade with a group of misfit soldiers while scientist Casey Brackett (Olivia Munn, “X-Men: Apocalypse”) studies the recovered materials for clues about where they came from and what they’re after.
When an alien Traeger has apprehended escapes from their lab and embarks on a killing spree, McKenna and his oddball cohorts escape during the melee to avoid further disciplinary actions — much less death at the hands of a Predator. But after realizing that the creature is heading directly for young Rory, whose behavioral issues have given him an unexpected advantage in activating the equipment, McKenna recruits his fellow prisoners to help kill it, rescue his son, and if possible collect enough evidence to present it to the world and prevent them all from becoming scapegoats for what is rapidly becoming a military mission gone wrong.
Black’s screenwriting conventions feel like traditional ones on adrenaline and “The Predator” unfolds with a lethal efficiency that both surpasses his previous efforts and undermines some of the elements that have traditionally made them work so well. There is simply an enormous amount of expository dialogue in the film, to the extent it sometimes feels like there’s nothing else, and as a result the actors feel like delivery systems for character and plot details rather than living, breathing people. Some of these characters work like gangbusters (Brown’s Traeger is cut from the same ice-cold, amoral, ruthlessly charming mold as Craig Bierko in “The Long Kiss Goodnight,” for example) while others, unfortunately including Holbrook’s McKenna, don’t leave an impression.
Fox
Holbrook, admittedly, was among the standouts in “Logan,” but teamed up with Trevante Rhodes (“Moonlight”) as a suicidal vet, and Munn as a wonderfully resourceful scientist-turned-Predator hunter, even his familial obligations to Rory don’t strike the deep dramatic impact the movie needs. At 107 minutes, the movie moves like lightning, so there are almost no moments to pause and explore these characters other than in relation to their “function” in the film. Meanwhile, folks like Keegan-Michael Key and Thomas Jane are clearly having a blast but exist on the periphery of the ensemble. They’re clearly enjoying their relative lack of responsibility but their presence only further undermines the cohesiveness of its momentum, and the consistency of its tone.
As a co-star and ghost writer on John McTiernan’s 1987 classic, Black long since established his firm grasp on the Predator universe, and he really embraces the established mythology of the creature and their technology. And all of those elements are a grisly blast: the body count is higher in this film than probably all of the others combined, including the jungle assault in the first, and the Predators (including the new Super Predator) dispatch their prey/victims with lethal efficiency. Paired with a score by Henry Jackman that liberally recreates Alan Silvestri’s iconic leitmotifs (from the jungle drums to the military-cadence Aaron Copland stuff), the action itself feels muscular and streamlined — a slightly less elegant Cliff’s Notes version of what McTiernan did some 31 years ago. But then again, with two direct and two more indirect sequels between then and now, it seems impossible to retell that story in form or content; the slow introduction of the creature in the first film gave audiences an opportunity to get to know the cast, and now it’s just trying to reinvent a Ten Little Indians scenario with new characters they want you to care about.
In which case, “The Predator” is a solid follow-up/ update that rights the franchise and diverts it from the “Alien Versus…” spinoff franchise, but it’s surprisingly not materially a much better film than “Predators,” which I probably mean more as a compliment to that underrated sequel than this one. Ultimately, one supposes that it isn’t that Black put too much of himself into this film, or somehow that a franchise stymied his voice; both challenges have paid handsome dividends for the filmmaker in the past. It’s just the proportions that are off. There’s something initially fun and undeniably cool about it (like tiny little Tremblay wearing a full-size Predator mask to go trick or treating) but it almost immediately proves unwieldy, and even bound together by fearless confidence and no small amount of elbow grease, in the end does more harm than good.
While promoting the movie at the Toronto Film Festival (which she is contractually obligated to do), Munn said she felt abandoned by her co-stars, who did not show up for an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, with the exception of 11-year-old Jacob Tremblay.
“It’s a very lonely feeling to be sitting here by myself when I should be sitting here with the rest of the cast,” the actress said. “I do feel like I’ve been treated by some people that I’m the one who went to jail or I’m the one that put this guy on set.”
Last week, news circulated that Munn had successfully lobbied for Fox to cut a scene including Steven Wilder Striegel, a registered sex offender who pleaded guilty in 2010 for trying to lure 14-year-old girl into a sexual relationship online. Striegel is a longtime friend of Black.
The studio said they had been unaware of Striegel’s background when he was hired. Black issued a statement saying he “was misled by a friend I really wanted to believe was telling me the truth when he described the circumstances of his conviction. I believe strongly in giving people second chances, but sometimes you discover that chance is not as warranted as you may have hoped.”
Munn also noted that Black hadn’t reached out to her after the scene was deleted.
“I haven’t heard from Shane. I did see his apology … I would have appreciated it more if it was directed toward me privately before it went public and I had to see it online with everyone else,” she said. “It’s honestly disheartening to have to fight for something so hard that is just so obvious to me.”
Co-stars Sterling K. Brown and Keegan-Michael Key quickly made public statements to voice their support of Munn and explain their absence from the Hollywood Reporter interview.
Brown, who is currently filming the third season of NBC’s “This Is Us,” tweeted:
.@oliviamunn I’m sorry you’re feeling so isolated, my dear. And I’m sorry you’ve been the only one to speak up publicly. I was not at #TIFF so I didn’t have an opportunity to be there with you. There are two main issues as far as I see it. First, what is and is not forgivable?… https://t.co/NQQpoO9kPa
Meanwhile, Key’s publicist told THR: “His last interview was scheduled after lunch, which he completed. He was always departing TIFF early so he could be home to spend the Jewish holiday with his wife. Furthermore, Keegan reached out to Olivia privately last week to let her know how proud he was of her and echoed that sentiment in many interviews since then.”
According to the L.A. Times, just days before “The Predator” was locked and ready to go, the filmmakers were told to go back in and cut the scene featuring Steven Wilder Striegel.
Striegel is an old friend of director Shane Black. Black cast his buddy in a small part, which is hardly new in Hollywood. But it turns out that Striegel was a registered sex offender — he pleaded guilty in 2010 after being accused of trying to lure a 14-year-old girl (one of his “distant relatives”) into a sexual relationship via the Internet.
Olivia Munn shared the scene in question with Striegel; he played a jogger who repeatedly hit on her character. She’s the one who found out about his past last month. She told studio 20th Century Fox on August 15, the Times reports, and they decided to cut the scene.
Fox gave a statement to the L.A. Times, saying they didn’t know about Striegel’s background “due to legal limitations that impede studios from running background checks on actors.”
Striegel said he’s known Shane Black for 14 years, “and I think it’s worth noting that he was aware of the facts. Shane can speak for himself, but I’m quite certain that if he felt I was a danger in any way to have around, he would not have.”
Shane Black did speak for himself, in this statement to the Times:
“I personally chose to help a friend. I can understand others might disapprove, as his conviction was on a sensitive charge and not to be taken lightly.”
He added that he believed his friend to be “caught up in a bad situation versus something lecherous.”
(The details in the Times story about the messages Striegel shared with the girl … they suggest something else.)
Striegel served six months in jail, then landed roles in Shane Black’s “Iron Man 3” and “The Nice Guys.”
Olivia Munn told the Times she found it “both surprising and unsettling that Shane Black, our director, did not share this information to the cast, crew, or Fox Studios prior to, during, or after production. However, I am relieved that when Fox finally did receive the information, the studio took appropriate action by deleting the scene featuring Wilder prior to release of the film.”
The difference between “The Predator” before and after reshoots is literally night and day.
Director Shane Black‘s sci-fi film was originally going to come out in February, before moving to August, and now opening in theaters September 14.
A few months ago, star Keegan-Michael Key told CinemaBlend they had just finished reshoots, “and just about three-quarters of the third act was rewritten.”
Collider talked to Shane Black during Comic-Con, when the filmmakers were just finalizing the VFX before the release. Collider asked about the reshoots — aka “additional photography” — wondering what Black learned from the test screenings, and what did he go back to do? Here’s Black’s explanation:
“Part of it was that we were making the film and we were trying to jam a lot into a five-pound bag. Right? So we had a big appetite, and one of the things about that was, well, if you want to do all of this stuff with this much money, you probably need to shoot during the day because during the night would be prohibitive.
And then to our chagrin — and it’s on me — when I saw the footage during the day, this is the climax of the movie, [The Predator] doesn’t look right. He doesn’t look scary in the daytime. And so, enough people agreed. And then we decided to streamline the plot so we could afford to go back up and really just concentrate on the scarier elements and doing it at night.
So literally, as they’ve said, the difference is night and day. We took everything out of day and put it into darkness.”
Sounds like a lot of time and money, but hopefully the end result was worth it. “The Predator” opens in theaters September 14.
Watch Shane Black’s full interview for more details on how he made the film, his appreciation of “The Nice Guys” fans, and revelation that he has Tourette syndrome:
A new trailer for Shane Black’s reimagining of “The Predator’ is here, with a better look at the titular hunter in action than the teaser. Black, as you may know, appeared in the 1987 original and has a true love for the franchise, which definitely shows in this horror-packed trailer.
In this movie, which is set between “Predator 2” (1990) and “Predators” (2010), the universe’s most lethal hunters are stronger, smarter and deadlier than ever before, having genetically upgraded themselves with DNA from other species.
When a young boy (Jacob Tremblay) accidentally triggers their return to Earth, only a ragtag crew of ex-soldiers and a disgruntled science teacher can prevent the end of the human race.
That soldiers are played by actors including Boyd Holbrook, Keegan-Michael Key, Sterling K. Brown, Alfie Allen, and Thomas Jane, while Olivia Munn is the scientist and Yvonne Strahovski is the boy’s mother.
Shane Black’s “The Predator” just released its first trailer, and the stars shared their own character posters.
This is the fourth film in the franchise, set between “Predator 2” and “Predators.” The cast includes Boyd Holbrook, Olivia Munn, Sterling K. Brown, Edward James Olmos, Trevante Rhodes, Keegan-Michael Key, Thomas Jane, Yvonne Strahovski, and Jacob Tremblay.
Yesterday, the stars previewed the first trailer and showed off their own character photos:
This morning, 20th Century Fox released the trailer:Here’s the movie synopsis:
“From the outer reaches of space to the small-town streets of suburbia, the hunt comes home in Shane Black’s explosive reinvention of the Predator series. Now, the universe’s most lethal hunters are stronger, smarter and deadlier than ever before, having genetically upgraded themselves with DNA from other species. When a young boy accidentally triggers their return to Earth, only a ragtag crew of ex-soldiers and a disgruntled science teacher can prevent the end of the human race.”
In case you’re confused about the beginning of the trailer, with Jacob Tremblay playing with with toys, his character is directly connected to what happens — he accidentally activated the alien ship.
Here are some details from IndieWire, from after the trailer played at CinemaCon:
“The footage begins with Tremblay’s young boy on Halloween playing with a toy box that has a toy alien ship inside of it. It turns out the toy is controlling a real alien spaceship, similar to the way Anne Hathaway controlled a monster in ‘Colossal.’ The vessel ends up crash landing on Earth and releasing tons of Predators.”
Shane Black‘s “The Predator” movie could go either way. Most of the reactions to the first teaser, shared during CinemaCon, were positive. But at least one critic was “underwhelmed.” Unfortunately, you won’t get a chance to judge for yourself today.
“The Predator,” opening in theaters this September, is the fourth film in the franchise, and it’s set between “Predator 2” and “Predators.” The cast looks strong: Boyd Holbrook, Olivia Munn, Edward James Olmos, Trevante Rhodes, Keegan-Michael Key, Thomas Jane, Yvonne Strahovski, and young Jacob Tremblay.
The first synopsis for the movie was shared during 20th Century Fox’s CinemaCon presentation:
“From the outer reaches of space to the small-town streets of suburbia, the hunt comes home in Shane Black’s explosive reinvention of the Predator series. Now, the universe’s most lethal hunters are stronger, smarter and deadlier than ever before, having genetically upgraded themselves with DNA from other species. When a young boy accidentally triggers their return to Earth, only a ragtag crew of ex-soldiers and a disgruntled science teacher can prevent the end of the human race.”
In case that sounds strange to you, you’re not alone; Collider called the synopsis “bonkers.”
The first teaser trailer sounds pretty out there, too. Here are some details from IndieWire:
“The footage begins with Tremblay’s young boy on Halloween playing with a toy box that has a toy alien ship inside of it. It turns out the toy is controlling a real alien spaceship, similar to the way Anne Hathaway controlled a monster in ‘Colossal.’ The vessel ends up crash landing on Earth and releasing tons of Predators.
The trailer cuts to an interrogation room featuring Boyd Holbrook, who is playing a military sniper. It turns out Holbrook is the father of the boy we saw earlier. Footage of soldiers battling Predators and a Predator violently holding one by the neck cut through Holbrook’s integration narration. Olivia Munn’s scientist makes a big impression during the trailer. Her character is seen expertly handling a gun. When Sterling K. Brown’s character asks, ‘You’re pretty handy with a gun, where’d you learn?’ Munn replies: ‘America.’”
Here are some of the positive reactions:
Shane Black’s THE PREDATOR looks great! Lots of bloody action, the hunters are evolving. #CinemaCon
And looks like Shane Black has another winner on his hands with THE PREDATOR, whose trailer includes very funny opening scene with Jacob Tremblay before moving into familiar paramilitary territory, and Weyland-Yutani-like corporate-science shenanigans. #CinemaConpic.twitter.com/fImc3yoioM
Shane Black and Fred Dekker’s character work was on full display already. There was a cool shot of the Predator laser dots on @JacobTremblay. Olivia Munn sees this, pushes him behind her and dots move to her.
Just saw #ThePredator teaser. Lots of set-up and mystery surrounding a mission that Boyd Holbrook’s character was on where he encountered an “alien”. We see a ship crash land on Earth and various shots of the Predator in various places. (1/2)
The Predator trailer looks really good. Starts with a young boy finding some predator artifacts. A lot of bloody thrilling jungle action. Can’t wait to see more. #CinemaCon
“Jacob Tremblay opening a box was the best thing in the first footage from Shane Black’s The Predator. Fox showed a taste of the highly anticipated next entry in the scifi series at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, and while opinions will obviously be mixed, I was left very underwhelmed. […] There was no big standout moment in the footage. No hero shot of the Predator or clear idea of what exactly is going on. We assume Holbrook’s character sees a crashed ship, his team is killed, he sends his son evidence, the evidence brings down more Predators. Then, things go wild and soldiers are called in to stop the Predators, with the complication of scientists wanting to study them. Right?”
Maybe? While you can’t see the teaser trailer yet, you can see Jacob Tremblay’s great Ahhhnold impression:
The hunt is on.
Shane Black’s “