Shane Black’s ‘The Predator’ Will Be Scary And Funny And Reference The Original

By Ethan Anderton/Oct. 26, 2016 2:00 pm EST

Now Shane Black has opened up a bit about The Predator in a couple recent interviews where he talks about what a Predator movie should be, the casting of Boyd Holbrook in the lead after Benicio del Toro exited the project, and why the movie absolutely had to be R-rated.

First of all, speaking with Collider, Black spelled out exactly what he thinks a Predator movie is and should be:

I’m thankful that Black held back from saying something that would have come off more hyperbolic than anything. Saying a movie will be unlike anything anyone has ever seen is such a cheap, exaggerated way to hype a movie, but the way he describes how the human characters should deal with something like the Predator (who is of an alien species called Yautja or Hish-Qu-Ten) is interesting.

I think the Predator movies have slightly veered from typical sci-fi in that there is a sort of thriller aspect to them. I think it should be scary, I think it should be funny, and I think ultimately it should be wondrous and about perceiving things that human beings very seldom get a chance to see… I don’t mean movie audiences I mean characters in the movie. I’m not saying the movie will be nothing anyone’s seen before.

With regards to The Predator, Black reiterates to JoBlo that this is more of a sequel than a reboot, and the film will reference the original while standing on its own:

As for the swap in casting from Benicio del Toro to Boyd Holbrook, it doesn’t sound like something Shane Black is worried about. Sometimes scheduling is used as an excuse when there are other reasons for a casting deal not coming through, but that doesn’t appear to be the case here. Black explains:

With Benicio [del Toro] and the scheduling, we just couldn’t make it work. We have a release date and we had to start much later than we wanted to. This way, the silver lining is [Boyd Holbrook], who I’ve spent some time with now, he’s just marvelous, he’s amazing.

Indeed, Deadpool likely made the prospect of an R-rated blockbuster easier to swallow, but not every R-rated movie is going to have success on that scale. The good news is that Predator fans only want an R-rated movie in this franchise, and we’re just happy that’s what we’re going to get.

Shane Black’s The Predator is slated to arrive on February 9, 2018, and we’ll keep you posted.