Let Us Prey

A “MIDLIFE CRISIS” BROUGHT SHANE BLACK BACK TO THE PREDATOR UNIVERSE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 30 YEARS – AND, AS HE TELLS RICHARD EDWARDS, HE’S OUT TO MAKE CINEMA’S ULTIMATE HUNTER SCARY AGAIN

- Calum Waddell

SHANE BLACK DIDN’T MAKE IT TO THE end of the original Predator. Starring as the wisecracking Hawkins – the youngest member of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s elite team of soldiers – he was the first to be eliminated, the most expendable role in an ensemble where life expectancies were, by dramatic necessity, a tad limited.

Now, some 31 years later, Black’s making a return to the killer alien saga as director and writer with the efficiently titled The Predator.

“The thing is, I didn’t really consider myself to be an essential part of the first Predator!” he confides to SFX when we meet in a San Diego hotel, the day before the film’s Comic-Con panel. “I know it makes for a good point of reference in a story, but really I was just there to observe and get murdered as quickly as possible. So I really didn’t expect to revisit it.

“But I will tell you I was surprised by its longevity,” he continues. “The [Predator] costume was cobbled together in a period of weeks by Stan Winston. The title ‘Predator’ was just an afterthought when they said, ‘We can’t call it The Hunter, because there’s a show by that name.’ And yet these seemingly very 11th hour decisions ended up generating these concepts which have lingered in the zeitgeist for over 30 years. I suppose there was always a vector in place that I would inevitably be confronted with it some day!”

Yet for much of those three decades, there was little indication that Black was destined for another face-off with one of those “ugly motherfuckers”. Off the back of Lethal Weapon he became one of Hollywood’s hottest screenwriters (the first Lethal Weapon sequel, Last Action Hero, The Long Kiss Goodnight), before turning director with the excellent Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and