The Predator | New Concept Art Reveals a Menagerie of Predator Hybrids
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Phil Roberts 
Cool new concept art reveals the bold hybrid creatures cut from Shane Black’s The Predator
The Predator was doomed from the very beginning.
With the announcement that original cast member and visionary director Shane Black had been given directorial duties on a legitimate sequel to the original Predator, fans around the world rejoiced. Black’s writing chops had been well earned after the success of Mel Gibson’s blockbuster Lethal Weapon and had since gone on to gain industry acclaim for his directorial style on successes like Iron Man 3 and The Nice Guys.
It was a match made in heaven.
However, when the movie opened around the world this past November fans of the franchise were treated to a baffling, subpar adventure which did more harm than good to a franchise yearning for rejuvenation. In fact, when compared to the Titan Books novelisation of Fred Dekker and Shane Black’s original screenplay the movie incarnation is a monstrosity. A bastardised hybrid of a great story combined with a studios’ tampering, desperate to turn the tide following an unfavourable response from test audiences. Whereas the original screenplay remained true to the Predator mythology and remained faithful to the ethos of previous movies, Fox’s tampered version abandoned those principles in favour of a franchise building twist which saw the inclusion of an “Iron Man” Predator Hunter suit!
In fact, several alternate endings were formulated for the reshoots with a multitude of off the wall ideas being thrown into the mix. These included Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley, famous from the Alien franchise emerging from the Iron Man suit chamber after having travelled backwards through time. Alongside her would be Newt, her co-star from James Cameron’s stellar sequel.
Thankfully, in light of the infamous Alien Vs Predator movies, the idea was abandoned but some of the alternates weren’t as bad as some might think. In fact, fresh concept art has revealed some of the monstrous results of The Predator‘s self-hybridisation attempts which would have made the finale all the more entertaining. Throughout the movie, we learnt that the Yautja, as a race had embarked on a series of experiments to force evolution unnaturally forward and make themselves better hunters. The result was the enormous hybrid Predator seen in the movie, however, the new concept reveals some of their other successes which were set to emerge from the pod in the finale.
The original idea, which sadly never made it past the concept stage was that the Predator had a menagerie of hybrid creatures on its ship. Once loose, these gruesome monsters would be crawling all over the place in the final sequences of The Predator leaving our heroes to fight off another horde of nightmares.
Sadly, they never made it into production and their brilliance will never feature in any version of Shane Black’s movie which is set to arrive on DVD & Blu-Ray in the UK on January 28th. And yet, the superb novelisation from Christopher Golden and Mark Morris demonstrates just how much of a missed opportunity The Predator truly was. If only 20th Century Fox valued great filmmaking over financial gain…because Shane Black’s original story would have killed it!
Find out for yourself on January 28th when The Predator arrives on DVD & Blu-Ray
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Phil Roberts is the owner, daily content manager, and editor-in-chief of The Future of the Force. He is a huge fan of Star Wars, Batman, DC, Marvel, Star Trek, Indiana Jones, Ghostbusters, King Kong, and the Ray Harryhausen movies.
If he’s not in the cinema he’s probably streaming something equally awesome!
