[B]Predators Movie Preview [/B]
[B]Everybody's favorite trophy hunting aliens return this summer.
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by [URL="http://movies.ign.com/email.html"]Brian Linder[/URL]
[B]March 10, 2010[/B] - Movie fans attending the upcoming SXSW Film Festival will get a special treat in the form of a [URL="http://movies.ign.com/articles/107/1073705p1.html"]preview for the [I]Predators[/I] movie[/URL], which actually seems like it might not suck. Considering how the [I]Predator[/I] franchise has been completely bastardized by the ill-conceived mash-ups with the [I]Alien[/I] series, that's a surprise. Can't make it to SXSW? We can help. Here's what we know about the flick so far...
It seems Fox had to strike out twice with the [I]AVP[/I] experiment before they realized that the best way to treat the Predator is to go back to the beginning. That's what they're doing with [I][URL="http://movies.ign.com/objects/429/429477.html"]Predators[/URL][/I].
Long before he became Mr. Spy Kids Sin City, [URL="http://stars.ign.com/objects/915/915101.html"]Robert Rodriguez[/URL] wrote a script for a sequel to 1987's "Get to the choppuh!" [I]Predator[/I], which followed a motley crew of hard-to-kill humans trying to survive as game for the ugly mothers. Now, years later, the project has been reborn.
Expect all sorts of alien-on-human violence with this movie, as we've heard that Predator-Falcons and other alien beasties take part in the bloodhunt.
Even as fans were still coming to terms with the mess the franchise was in after [I]AVP 2[/I], new life was breathed into the [I]Predator[/I] series in early 2009 when genre darling [URL="http://movies.ign.com/articles/950/950016p1.html"]Rodriguez was hired[/URL] to guide the project. Early reports suggested that he was set to direct, but Rodriguez is [URL="http://movies.ign.com/articles/980/980078p1.html"]only producing[/URL] the picture. Still, that's a big deal.
"We're hiring new writers and a director and I'm going to produce it over at Troublemaker Studios with Fox to try and reboot the series in a really great way," Rodriguez [URL="http://movies.ign.com/articles/980/980078p1.html"]explained to IGN[/URL].
"This is something else," he said when asked if the new movie would have anything to do with the [I]AVP[/I] movies. "This is more like the first movie, but in a new way. Just rebooting the series in a whole new way. Not a remake, but more like what they did with the Batman series. They just started over. You know? Let's just start over using a different approach to it. We'll take the character everybody loves, but let's rethink it and make it for the time. Because the first one was made 20-plus years ago. So you want to do something more updated."
Rodriguez was instrumental in bringing in [URL="http://movies.ign.com/articles/100/1000674p1.html"][I]Kontroll[/I] director Nimrod Antal[/URL] of whom he said, "I found him to be an outstanding presence, a great communicator full of ideas. He reminded me of Quentin [Tarantino] with how he was able to work with a group of very strong, singular actor talents and make it look effortless."
At [URL="http://movies.ign.com/articles/100/1007101p1.html"]Comic-Con[/URL], Rodriguez told fans that 20th Century Fox reapproached him about the project because they thought the Predator franchise had gone astray with the [I]Alien vs. Predator[/I] movies. He assured fans that the studio was letting him make the movie his way at his Troublemaker Studios in Austin, Texas, and that his '94 script will be the basis for it.
[URL="http://movies.ign.com/articles/101/1014139p1.html"]Production officially began[/URL] in late September at Troublemaker before going on location to Kolekole, Hawaii.
The story, it's been revealed, is set on what amounts to a Predator wildlife reserve where a group of bad-ass killers have been transported by the Predators to be hunted for sport.
The quickly assembled cast began to come together upon the signing of stars [URL="http://movies.ign.com/articles/103/1032584p1.html"]Adrien Brody and Topher Grace[/URL]. [URL="http://stars.ign.com/objects/142/14285028.html"]Alice Braga[/URL] was also added to the film along with frequent Rodriguez collaborator [URL="http://movies.ign.com/articles/102/1029111p1.html"]Danny Trejo[/URL], [I]Shield[/I] actor [URL="http://movies.ign.com/articles/103/1031314p1.html"]Walton Goggins[/URL], [I]The 4400[/I] star [URL="http://stars.ign.com/objects/910/910656.html"]Mahershalalhashbaz Ali[/URL], and UFC fighter Oleg Taktarov.
[I]The Hollywood Reporter[/I] scooped at the time: "Brody is a man who ends up inheriting the mantle of leader and is known as a hunter of men. Grace would play an accountant-type whose unassuming facade masks a dangerous serial killer. Braga is the tough female killer. Ali is a man not afraid to die, Goggins is the loose canon of the group and Taktarov is a former Russian special ops agent. Trejo is Cuchillo, a hardened warrior with twin uzis strapped to his back." Louis Ozawa Changchien will play a Yakuza hitman.
Morpheus himself, [URL="http://movies.ign.com/articles/105/1056417p1.html"]Laurence Fishburne[/URL], hopped on board the project as a mysterious character named Noland. Little is known about the character aside from the fact that he's somehow managed to stay alive in this otherwise deadly environment for years before the Predators' latest conquests arrive.
The all-important creature effects have been handled by KNB -- the shop's Greg Nicotero worked on the 1987 [I]Predator[/I] film, and also collaborated with Rodriguez on [I]From Dusk Till Dawn[/I] and [I]Sin City[/I]. KNB [URL="http://movies.ign.com/articles/102/1028205p1.html"]FX guru Howard Berger[/URL] worked with Stan Winston on the original creature as well. Berger has gone on record saying the new creatures are "very faithful to the Stan Winston designs" and that "everyone's going to be very happy" with them.
Along with the announcement of the impending [URL="http://movies.ign.com/articles/107/1073705p1.html"]SXSW preview and Q&A[/URL], we got our first (apparently) official plot synopsis: "The film stars [URL="http://stars.ign.com/objects/914/914191.html"]Adrien Brody[/URL] as Royce, a mercenary who reluctantly leads a group of elite warriors who come to realize they've been brought together on an alien planet... as prey. With the exception of a disgraced physician, they are all cold-blooded killers -- mercenaries, Yakuza, convicts, death squad members -- human "predators" that are now being systematically hunted and eliminated by a new breed of alien Predators." That new breed? Rumor has it that it's something called a "Black Super Predator."
The presentation takes place on the festival's opening night, following the world premiere of superhero flick [I]Kick-Ass[/I], meaning that in just a couple of days (March 12) we'll know even more about [I]Predators[/I].
[I]Predators[/I], from 20th Century Fox and Troublemaker Studios, opens on July 9, 2010. Rodriguez produces the Antal-directed flick from a script by Rodriguez with revisions by Alex Litvak and Michael Finch. Composer John Debney ([I]Spy Kids[/I], [I]Sin City[/I]) is scoring the film. We'll have more here on IGN as the movie's release approaches.
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