Thomas Jane talks new Predator plot details

Thomas Jane talks new Predator plot details

0 comments 📅04 November 2017, 11:59

Not much is known about the forthcoming foray into the Predator franchise, but there is plenty to be excited about – even a cursory glance at IMDb confirms that. In essence, it’s got some of the best and most underrated talent in sci-fi attached. For starters, Shane Black is writing and directing, Thomas Jane is starring, along with Edward James Olmos, Olivia Munn and even Jake Busey.

Entitled The Predator, Black co-wrote this with The Monster Squad helmer Fred Dekker and we know that the film will acknowledge the events of the original films, making it more of a sequel than a hard reboot.

But thankfully, Jane recently revealed a veritable Aladdin’s cave of new information in an interview with Shadow Nation and already it sounds like an A-typical Shane Black film.

“We play these veterans from like Afghanistan, Iraq war or whatever. But we’re all fucking crazy so we go to the VA hospital to get our meds. We’re all like shellshocked, PTSD…soldiers. We’re at the VA hospital and we’re in group therapy and of course, somebody flips out…this is backstory, I don’t think we really see this…somebody flips out and we all get arrested and get thrown onto the bus to go down to the hospital and they throw this other guy on the bus too,” explained Jane.

(L-R) Alfie Allen, Keegan-Michael Key, Thomas Jane, Augusto Aguilera, Boyd Holbrook and Trevante Rhodes looking ready for battle

“And he’s a guy they’ve actually marked to kill him because he’s seen a UFO, he’s seen the Predator ships come down so they lock him up and throw him in with us lunatics. They’re going to take that bus, drive it down to a ditch and shoot us all just to get rid of this one guy. But, of course, we take the bus over and we’re all like “fuck that man, let’s go kill these fucking Predators ourselves” and we’re just crazy enough to believe that this guy really did see a UFO and there’s these aliens out there. So that’s kinda cool!”

He also seemed to confirm the presence of multiple Predators in the film, saying, “[It] has that kind of Shane Black humour. We had a blast. It was funny. You know the Predators, they looked…you know they didn’t fuck those up. They’re still Predators and they’re pretty much the same Predator as always. I think it might be great.”

Jane of course has recently starred in the phenomenal TV series The Expanse and we can’t stress enough how good this is. Star Trek: Discovery and The Orville probably take a close second place to this. It’s brilliant. It’s the best sci-fi currently on TV.

And Black is probably one of the most under-appreciated auteurs in Hollywood. He gave us Iron Man 3, possibly the best of all the Marvel films (oh, come on, Trevor Slattery should have his own comic book series), plus he created some of pop-culture’s most well-known clichés – Cop On The Edge and Cop About To Retire in Lethal Weapon (1987) – when he was just 26. He also wrote the screenplays for The Last Boy Scout (1991) and The Last Action Hero (1993) and unsurprisingly for a while he was Hollywood’s highest paid screenwriter. Sadly though, we all know these movies are epic and they immediately secure cult status amongst fans, but they didn’t score particularly big at the box office.

Similarly, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), Black’s directorial debut, revitalized the career of Robert Downey Jr and features one of Val Kilmer‘s best performances to date – certainly his second best after Tombstone (1993) – and while it was beloved by dark comedy fans it didn’t earn big bucks. Last year’s The Nice Guys fizzled out at the box office, but many who saw it consider it the best movie of the 2016 summer season.

Have you found Hawkins?! I…I…can’t tell…

Moreover, Black has a close affiliation with the Predator franchise since he starred as Hawkins in the 1987 classic, which if you do the math, is 30 years old this year. Apparently he was meant to be making tweaks to the script and ended up playing Hawkins. He was also writing Lethal Weapon while they filmed in the jungle.

The Predator released date was recently changed to August 3, 2018, so we still have a while to wait…but here at MYM, we think it’s going to rock.

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