It’s safe to say The Predator hasn’t had the best of weeks in the run-up to its release on Friday. Not only has it received a largely negative response from critics (49% on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing), but it’s also been caught up in an extremely bad bit of press when it emerged that Shane Black had hired a convicted sex offender to play a part in the film without telling the cast.
To add insult to injury, it appeared that Olivia Munn had been hung out to dry by Black and the cast when she demanded an apology and that his scene be cut. With all that swirling about, Arnold Schwarzenegger may be breathing a sigh of relief that he chose not to cameo in the movie.
In an interview with Digital Spy, Black explained that he approached Schwarzenegger in an attempt to convince him to return as Major Alan “Dutch” Schaefer, the hero of the original Predator who came out on top of the alien hunter. But he explained that the studio didn’t want this to be a nostalgia trip, saying:
“The studio wanted a fresher movie that featured an evolving cast. They didn’t want to hinge the movie on the re-emergence of Schwarzenegger. It would probably be more of a matter of his showing up briefly and just participating at the very end, at the climax of the movie.”
Schwarzenegger didn’t exactly sound enthused at the idea of cameoing in the movie, either, a sentiment that Black entirely agreed with.
“Understandably – and believe me, I completely get it – he said, ‘Look, that’s kind of a small part, and I don’t really think I want to do that. I’m off to do Terminator with Jim Cameron, basically. Or for Jim Cameron. So I totally got it, you know? If I was Schwarzenegger, I’d want to be one of the stars of a film, or nothing.”
But with the film’s chances at the box office currently looking a little bit shaky, perhaps the rumors of a Schwarzenegger cameo would have increased audience anticipation of the project? Fortunately for fans of Arnie (and the original), if they manage to squeeze a sequel out of this, Black has apparently left the door open for the future return of Dutch.
“So you know, if there’s another movie, there’s no reason why he couldn’t be either in it, or the star of it, or whatever someone decides at a future date.”
It’s notable that Schwarzenegger seems to have much less attachment to the Predator franchise than he does to, say, The Terminator. He turned down the chance of appearing in Predator 2, leaving the door open for Danny Glover to take the protagonist role and aside from occasionally referencing his iconic “Get to the choppah!” line, doesn’t bring it up much.
Either way, we should know by next Monday whether The Predator is performing well enough to get studio to greenlight a sequel. At this point, though, things certainly aren’t looking too good.