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Shane Black Admits The Predator's Original Ending Didn't Work
The Predator director Shane Black has admitted the movie’s original finale didn’t work as he conceived - which is why it was completely reshot. The Predator’s release date was pushed back from February to September to allow time for reshoots, which added significant changes to the third act. Details about what exactly was alterd have started to emerge, revealing a number of hybrid creatures have been cut out and that the showdown with the hulking, upgraded Predator has been reconceived. The reshoots also added Easter eggs ties to previous movies.
The Predator’s story finds a group of soldiers going up against a new strain of Predators – who’ve been splicing their DNA with other aliens to make themselves better hunters. It turns out the government is also well aware of the hunter’s activities, and have even captured one for experiments. Jake Busey will also play the son of Peter Keyes (played by Busey’s real-life father Gary) from Predator 2, whose quest to capture the City Hunter ends very badly; Keyes Jr will continue his father’s work.
Shane Black is currently finishing up editing on The Predator, and in a new interview with Empire (via AVP Galaxy), he opened up about why the original ending had to be drastically overhauled. In short, it wasn’t spooky enough:
The first time we shot the third act it was daytime. It’s all this spooky stuff but then its bright sunlight. It just didn’t work. So I said ‘Ummm, can we do this again at night?'
Black later quipped the difference this change made to The Predator’s finale is ‘...night and day.’ The director also confessed the project was harder to make than he was expecting. Black’s goal with the movie was to make the franchise an event again and provide a fresh spin on the concept. While some fans have questioned the ideas the film will introduce – like the hybrid creatures – at least it’s attempting to inject something new into a series that was previously content on recycling old concepts. Given his past work, the writer/director has also earned the benefit of the doubt.
There were also fan rumblings the reshoots would add a cameo appearance by Arnold Schwarzenegger, reprising his role as Dutch from the original movie. The actor previously turned down a scripted cameo in The Predator because he felt the part wasn’t big enough, so unless he had a change of heart it’s unlikely he’ll be appearing. Shane Black actually co-starred with Schwarzenegger in the first movie too, playing Hawkins, the radioman who is the first of the soldiers to meet a sticky end.
The Predator (2018) release date: Sep 14, 2018
