Before Shane Black was notable for directing modern classics like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and The Nice Guys, and yes, we will die on that hill, he was Hollywood’s macho action movie wunderkind. He wrote the scripts for Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, The Long Kiss Goodnight, and The Last Action Hero, and he turned up in Predator as Hawkins, the guy with the glasses and the dirty jokes, in a movie that saw a confluence of ’80s action glory as it firmed up Schwartzenegger’s career and launched director John McTiernan, who’d promptly turn around and make the best Christmas movie ever. And now Black has returned, as writer and director, and clearly, he has a beef with Spielberg.
Seriously, the trailer opens with practically an ET parody: A warm, Spielbergian shot of kids enjoying Halloween, a mysterious box full of neat stuff, it’s just, uh, the neat stuff is actually Predator armor. And, in short order, a little kid crashes a spaceship in the Pacific Northwest and we’re off to the races.
It appears that the Predators have decided that Earth is a pleasant enough place to move in, although you’d think that after arriving on Earth and promptly being murdered by a bunch of grunting apes they’d pick somewhere nicer, like Venus. It will be up to what we assume are a bunch of tough, snarky bad enough people, including Keegan-Michael Key, Olivia Munn, Sterling K. Brown, and Jake Busey. Interestingly, Busey is credited as the son of his dad Gary’s character in Predator 2, so apparently, the weird cyberpunk dystopic Los Angeles and Predators popping and locking are canon in the franchise. We’ll find out if they can still bust a move on September 14th.