The man who directed Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Iron Man 3 has acknowledged that he’s living a weird dream: Having played the smaller role of Hawkins in the original Predator, Shane Black is now the guy behind the franchise’s return to the big screen.
That lunch delivery was supposed to be here hours ago! Photo: Kimberly French (20th Century Fox)
Though we only just got our first look via a teaser trailer earlier this week,
Collider has a long, wide-ranging interview with Black from a visit to The Predator set that happened months ago. In the chat, he talks about his aesthetic inspiration and some of the underlying plot elements:
… There was a great deal of nostalgia and also a desire to do a kind of old-school thriller in the form of The Predator… there’s a lasting quality [to the] original movie [that’s] due I think, in part to the fact that it was made before it was so easy to just do a bunch of CGI effects and before video games had taken hold as well.
… Fred [Dekker, the film’s co-writer] and I just thought – obviously we’ve kept up on visual effects and technology and we’re big fans – but let’s try to do an old-school kind of real hearty and heartfelt kind of war movie surrounding this story.
As to the tone and how this film will differ, Black said:
There’s an element of intrigue and I think espionage/mystery, whatever. The government is involved in this and it takes it to the level of what happens when the Predator strikes, these incursions are not just an every-once-in-a-while phenomenon known to a few, but have come to the attention of an establishment that is actually set on preparing for and marshaling forces against these incoming Predator strikes. And, so it’s that sort of what the next step is, when they get noticed, that’s kind of what we start as our jumping off point for what’s different. And also, what happens when the Predators get a little more ambitious? Maybe it’s not just a weekend [hunt] anymore. So, we’ve had some fun with that.
Black also talks a bit about how the production is going to be implementing special effects, as well as his desire to layer a bunch of genres on top of each other in The Predator. It’s a fun read, so head over to Collider to check out the whole interview.
[Collider]