TRAILER WATCH - THE PREDATOR

“Tell me about the mission – did you see anything unusual?” 

In the latest instalment of the 'Predator' franchise, THE PREDATOR takes the action back to Earth at some point between 1990’s Predator 2, and 2010’s Predators. In the trailer, we see one of the alien’s spaceships crash on Earth, apparently triggered by a boy (Jacob Tremblay) playing with a Predator helmet and armor that he finds in a delivered package. What happens is predictable for a Predator movie: one of the unseen aliens kills a special forces team that goes out to investigate the crash, while a scientist (Olivia Munn) uses some fancy equipment to figure out that the aliens are “attempting hybridization” on every planet that they come across. The film also stars Boyd Holbrook (Gone Girl), Keegan-Michael Key (Key and Peele), and Sterling K. Brown (Black Panther).

Black’s installment in the franchise has been in the works since 2014. The film was initially thought to be a reboot, but he later noted that the film would be considered a sequel. “Why start over, when you’ve all this rich mythology yet to mine?” Black said. The Predator also marks a return to the franchise for Black. While he’s known as a screenwriter and director for films like Lethal Weapon, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and Iron Man 3, he’s also appeared in a number of films as an actor, including the original Predator, in which he played doomed radio operator Rick Hawkins.

It isn’t the first time 20th Century Fox has worked to revitalize the franchise: there were a pair of crossover films in which Predators fought Aliens in 2004 and 2007, while Nimród Antal directed 2010’s Predators, in which a motley group of soldiers are transported to an alien world and picked off for sport by the aliens. That film left room for a sequel, but it seems that the studio is looking to bring the franchise back to its roots on Earth.

See the trailer here: