Originally Published on Set The Tape
With the Predator franchise celebrating its 30th anniversary, and a new film coming in 2018, the popularity of the series could once again be on the climb. Where could the series head to next? Here are some of our ideas for five potential Predator movies.
Predators vs Vikings
The Predator franchise has explored historic settings within their comics on a quite frequent basis, often pairing up the predator against interesting opponents such as medieval knights, samurai warriors, and pirates, to name but a few. Whilst these are all great ideas for a film, one of the historic pairings that I’d like to see the most is vikings.
There have been a lot of great films and television that have demonstrated how awesome vikings are as a setting, from the fairly accurate television series Vikings, to the spooky 13th Warrior (also directed by the 1987 feature’s helmer, John McTiernan), and even the cheesy Outlander, vikings have entertained for decades.
Dropping a predator in the middle somewhere such as Denmark or Norway to hunt some of the fiercest warriors in history just makes a lot of sense. It gives the predator series a location that it hasn’t yet explored, and puts the human protagonists at a distinct disadvantage of not having firearms to rely upon.
The film could follow a group of warriors on their way to/from a raid, or the predator could be targeting viking community, stalking and picking off individual members. With a lack of technology and concepts like aliens this setting would lend itself well to making the scariest Predator film yet, would the vikings think the creature some kind of demon come to kill them all, and how would they be able to bring down a monster so far beyond them they can’t even begin to comprehend what it is?
Yes, this kind of scenario would work with many historic settings, but I will maintain that the location and culture of the vikings makes them the best choice for a historic piece.
Predator: Big Game
Predator: Big Game was a four issue comic series produced by Dark Horse in the early 90’s, written by John Arcudi. The story of Predator: Big Game sees the titular monster in the southwest of the united states hunting personnel from the local military base.
When the predator crosses paths with Corporal Enoch Nakai, the young soldier finds himself the focus of the creature. After the destruction of his base he has to go on the run from the military, who want him for what he knows, whilst trying to kill the predator before it kills him.
One of the best Predator comics produced, Big Game would give us a new desert environment in which to see the predator, as well as allowing the studio to introduce some more diversity to the series by casting its first Native American lead.
Vietnam War
The Predator series is most at home with a group of soldiers in the jungle, with both the first and third film using this set up. Where these films had experienced soldiers and mercenaries, the Vietnam War setting would allow you a more diverse pool of characters. You can have your career military, but you can also have your average person that was conscripted, those who don’t want to be soldiers.
You can even use the setting to create two converging storylines, with both the American forces and the Viet Cong being hunted by one or more of the predators, believing the other side is responsible for the deaths, before having to come together to fight their common foe.
Whilst it would be a historical setting, and would be earlier in the series than the first film, it would still be able to take advantage of fairly modern technology, technology that would be recognisable to many filmgoers.
Colonial Marines
The Alien vs Predator films were bad. Even people who found some enjoyment in them have to admit that they’re not good films. The comics that they were based upon, however, were very good; and it may be possible to try a crossover universe again, though doing so in a subtle way.
Forget the xenomorph, keep it out of the film, don’t even mention it. Instead, use the Colonial Marines as the protagonists for the predators to hunt. The weapons and technology would instantly be recongisable to fans of the franchise, allowing people to enjoy it as a shared universe piece whilst still allowing it to be a Predator film.
You can then set the film literally anywhere in the universe. You can create any kind of alien world on which the action can take place. You can begin to explore the predator culture more, possibly even including their real name (Yautja to those not in the know).
This setting would allow probably the most creative freedom, and can even be the basis for another attempt doing an Alien vs Predator film well in a sequel or spin-off.
The Return of Arnold Schwarzeneggar and Danny Glover
Probably the least likely film to be made of all those on the list, mainly due to the age of the two actors, but it would be great to see the stars of the first two films come back for a sequel.
Arnold has almost returned a number of times, both in Predators (his part ultimately being rewritten for Lawrence Fishburne) and most recently for The Predator, though these plans fell through on both occasions.
Whilst it would be amazing to have the two of them back, as the only people on earth that we’ve seen beat the predators, it would be more likely that they’d have smaller, cameo roles; but even so, I know I’d love to see that.
Ideally, have to two of them working together as new predators come to earth to target them as a matter of restoring honour for their fallen brothers. Nothing would be more awesome than seeing Arnie fighting predators whilst Danny Glover mutters that he’s ‘getting too old for this shit’.
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