When the new Predator movie was announced in summer 2014, writer/director Shane Black stressed an important point about the project: it wasn't going to be a reboot. Instead, the film would serve as an in-continuity sequel, picking up on elements from previous movies in the canon. These elements have mostly been kept a secret, but when I was on the set of The Predator last year, Boyd Holbrook admitted to one of the blockbuster's connections while talking about his character's reaction to meeting an alien:
I've seen something, and maybe there is a familiarity. I wouldn't want to say that he's a UFO conspiracy theorist, but he's heard of things and seen things, and that may be a reference to the original. So that's the reference to the original, which we are keeping in lineage.
Last spring I joined a small group of film journalists for a trip up to Vancouver, Canada for a visit to the then in-production set of The Predator, and it was during this junket that we had the opportunity to sit down with Boyd Holbrook. The actor talked a lot about his role, mercenary Quinn McKenna, and it was towards the end of the roundtable interview that I asked about how Quinn felt about seeing an alien for the first time. It turns out that he won't be too surprised by it, because he has heard stories of the creatures existing from other people in his line of work. And while he wouldn't exactly say what his character has seen, it evidently ties back to the Central America situation from 1987's Predator.
In The Predator, based on a script by Shane Black and Fred Dekker, Quinn McKenna is a mercenary and estranged father who finds himself in serious trouble when a mission he's on is interrupted by an alien encounter. The government, trying to keep the situation under wraps, tries to bury him, and it winds up leading him to meet a group called the Loonies: a group of soldiers with a wide variety of mental and emotional issues. They definitely aren't the best team, but they are the people at Quinn's disposal, and together they wind up being the line of defense between humanity and a deadly alien invasion.
Unlike the original jungle-set Predator, the new movie will be bringing the action back to suburban America, but it will be interesting to see just how far the connections back to the original go. For your first taste of the film, you can watch the teaser trailer that was released this morning below:
Boyd Holbrook plays the lead in The Predator, but he's joined by a fantastic supporting cast that includes Trevante Rhodes, Keegan-Michael Key, Olivia Munn, Sterling K. Brown, Jacob Tremblay, Alfie Allen, and Thomas Jane. The movie will be out in theaters on September 14th, and be sure to stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for more of my set visit coverage!
