Jul 4, 2009 08:00 AM
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It's official - Little-known director Nimrod Antal is going to be directing Robert Rodriguez's sequel/reboot to Predator, Predators. But is the name a worrying omen for how much this film will echo James Cameron's Aliens? Rodriguez teases the answer.
Antal's involvement was confirmed by Rodriguez - who's "overseeing" the movie, as well as co-writing - on Ain't It Cool, where he also spilled a small amount of beans about what'll be happening in it:
I can't go too much into the story right now, because we're still writing. But it still involves a very intense group of people stranded on a Predator planet discovering unspeakable horrors (that are not always from outside their group). So like the original movie, the title does have a double meaning. Aliens was a different take on the Alien idea, and an original movie in it's own right, and that's what we want to do with this.
So, let's see - Aliens made the original movie's title plural and upped the ante by taking characters to (potentially) the home planet of the first movie's monster, whereas Predators will make the original movie's title plural and up the ante by taking characters to (potentially) the home planet of the first movie's monsters. Hey, I've got a great idea for a sequel to The Thing - I'm calling it The Things. Anyone want to guess what the plot is?
Snark aside, Rodriguez explained what we should expect from the new movie:
When I was hired to write the original draft back in 1994, i was only brought on as a writer. I never thought I'd get to work on it in any other capacity. So a few months ago, when Alex Young at Fox contacted me about re-inventing the franchise using my original draft as a template for getting as far away as possible from the AVP movies, I jumped on it... Alex came down and saw Troublemaker Studios, and the facilities and crew that I've built up over the past 12 years, and he felt right away that this is where the movie should be made and that doing it down here would be the best way to protect it from the studio system. He was keen on making a very "non-studio" picture... As to how this movie will be viewed, one of the guys at Fox told me "No one is ever going to talk about AVP again after this film, I will stake my life on it." And he's a really nice guy, so I don't want to see him dead. Now that lives are at stake, it's no longer a job it's a mission. Failure is not an option.
A non-studio studio relaunch for the franchise to make people forget all about Aliens Vs. Predator? We can get behind that... as long as it's much less of an Aliens rip-off than it currently sounds.
Nimrod Antal is directing Predators - Q&A with Robert Rodriguez reveals more!!! [Ain't It Cool]
Send an email to Graeme McMillan, the author of this post, at graeme@io9.com.
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