For all of its fans and for all of the legendary praise it seems to have stored over the decades of its existence, it's hard to remember that we only really have three Predator films in the history of the character. Not counting the Alien vs. Predator films, those three films have managed to give us a villain so memorable that tons of fan art, novels, and even comic books have been written to extend the legacy of the under-used film icon. It's not that there's a lack of effort to try and revive the franchise, though, especially considering that Vincenzo Natali has just released artwork from his own attempt.
Three posts from Natali's Twitter have showcased three different sets of artwork for a pitch that the director had for bringing the Predator series back to the big screen. Much like his posts about the similarly aborted takes on Swamp Thing and It we've been hearing about, these posts are made up of the raw materials that the director had created to help him pitch the films in question. Taking a look at the content that's on display, we're sad to see such a concept go to waste.
The first post, seen above, is of artwork from artist Dan Milligan, and it depicts what looks like the ending of a vicious sword fight between a human and Predator combatant. Scouring the image for clues, with a healthy dose of wishful thinking, it looks like this sword fight could be a sequence showcasing a Predator fighting a samurai warrior of some sort. Judging the green blood in the image, it looks like the human warrior has won the fight.
Moving on, we see some artwork from Vincenzo Natali's personal storyboards for his Predator project. His artwork seems like it belongs to either a montage sequence, or various scenes from the hypothetical film's events. The last two storyboards do seem to support the theory of the film showing Predators throughout the course of human history, as they both look to depict a Predator and a human in caveman days.
Finally, we close out the Predator installation with what's probably our favorite piece of concept art, from artist Amro Attia – the artist behind Natali's concept art for It. For his approach on Vincenzo Natali's Predator, Attia gave the Predator a mechanized look that invokes Art Deco sensibilities. What's exciting about this is the fact that the post below almost looks like it could compliment the original poster for The Rocketeer, as both pieces of art have similar style elements.
While Vincenzo Natali's Predator might be dead, alongside the other projects he's had to let go of over the years, it's still pretty awesome to see what concepts the Splice director would have played around with, had he been given the green light. Despite the concepts we may have batted around, there is no concrete evidence as to what shape the plot to the Predator remake would have taken. All we have is some kick assed artwork, and the comfort that Natali should next be seen adapting Stephen King's In The Tall Grass
