If any of the various Predator sequels, reboots and crossovers deserved further adventures, it was Nimrod Antal’s Predators. The 2010 effort scored the best reviews in the entire series behind John McTiernan’s classic original, and it was also the highest-grossing entry until Shane Black’s The Predator came along after earning over $127 million at the box office on a $40 million budget.
The concept found a ragtag group of human characters abducted and dropped onto a planet used specifically as a hunting ground for the titular alien species to hone their skills, and the ensemble was stacked with recognizable faces including Adrien Brody, Alice Braga, Mahershala Ali, Laurence Fishburne, Walton Goggins and Danny Trejo. All of them were elite killers, criminals, soldiers or mercenaries, with the exception of Topher Grace’s bookish doctor Edwin.
However, after spending the majority of the movie making you wonder what he’s doing in such infamous company, the third act reveals that Edwin is a sociopathic serial killer and arguably the most dangerous of the group. In a new interview, Grace admitted that the big twist drew some mixed reactions during a screening that he was sitting in on, and even culminated in him bringing a fan to tears.
“My character starts crying because his foot’s in a trap and you kind of have to feel for him and then it’s revealed that he’s a psycho. And so, I start crying. It was a hard day at work for me to like, get there, and also you’re playing two different characters, kind of. So, I’m watching this film in the movie theater and this guy goes, ‘This guy’s crying like a little bitch!’. I turn around and I go, ‘What’s up now?’. And this guy’s mind exploded. He was like, ‘Oh my God! You’re here and you’re on the screen’. I think it was the most scared I’d ever seen someone in a movie theater because he, like, realized I was the movie’s serial killer and then I turned around in front of him. He started crying, it was great.”
Folks would have loved to see a sequel to Predators, and while there’ve been rumors it could yet end up happening, it looks unlikely given that 10 Cloverfield Lane‘s Dan Trachtenberg is in the midst of reinventing the property once again. Writer Alex Litvak revealed that he planned to make the second installment a cross between Die Hard and James Cameron’s Aliens set on a Predator ship, though, and given the cult status of the movie, it’s a crying shame that we never got to see it happen.