Alex Litvak's unmade Predators sequel idea would have been better for the continuation of the franchise—here's why. Nimrod Antal’s 2010 film was a modest success, but it was disregarded in the following entry, Shane Black’s The Predator from 2018. The plot details for a continuation to Antal’s movie highlight a much more exciting premise that would have given the series a unique spin.
John McTiernan’s genre icon Arnold Schwarzenegger at the height of his popularity, it used the Aliens template to pull in a diverse audience looking for big budget thrills. Schwarzenegger played the head of a paramilitary team sent to Central America on a hostage rescue mission who is confronted with an alien intelligence that has come to Earth to hunt humans. It was a high concept plot that did not lend itself to an obvious follow-up. However, a hit genre film will almost always get a sequel—and McTiernan’s film has had more than a few.
In 1990, Stephen Hopkins’ film, Predator 2, was released, but featured a storyline independent of the original. Taking place 10 years after Predator, the sequel focused on another alien hunting victims in L.A. during a heated gang-related turf war. Without the presence of Schwarzenegger’s character or the exotic jungle setting, the film’s main draw became the predator itself, played again by stunt man Kevin Peter Hall. Though the sequel was a modest hit, it would take another 14 years to get another Predator film released. In 2004, Alien Vs. Predator—a match-up hinted at in the ’90s sequel—was released, followed up by a direct sequel in 2007: Alien Vs. Predator: Requiem. While those films were popular enough at the box office, many Predator fans were not pleased with either release.
The Unmade Predators Sequel Would Have Benefitted The Franchise
When maverick filmmaker Robert Rodriguez announced that he would be producing a more faithful continuation to the original Predator, the news was met with enthusiasm. The resulting film, Predators, was a return to the straightforward action template from the 1987 production. The plot revolved around a group of trained killers who have been abducted and sent to a jungle planet for the purpose of being hunted by the predator species. While director Nimrod Antal’s film was embraced by fans, it did not catch on with the general public. A direct follow-up, which was conceived by Predators co-writer Alex Litvak, would have concentrated on survivors Royce (Adrien Brody) and Isabelle (Alice Braga).
Litvak described his idea as “Die Hard on a Predator ship”. The concept would have seen Royce and Isabelle captured by Super Predators and taken aboard their ship. The two would break out of confinement and attempt to take control by turning the tables on their captors and hunting them down. Predators 2 would have offered a unique twist on the series, and opened up the universe of the predators. It would have also allowed for a variety of directions for the franchise to follow, including more exploration of their home planet.
What audiences received instead was The Predator (2018), an unrelated follow-up that told yet another variation on a group of soldiers who do battle with predators on Earth. While that film, directed and co-written by Black, performed well domestically and abroad, its derivative plot and stock action characters did little to add to the predator mythos. It also introduced an absurd storyline about the predator species wanting to improve itself using human DNA. Though a sequel has yet to be greenlit for the 2018 hit, it would interesting to see what Litvak’s ideas might be for another Predator hunt.
