What We Know So Far

The Predator franchise has been laying low since Nimrod Antal’s Predators back in 2010, but the cinematic return of the legendary extraterrestrial killer is imminent. In the summer of 2014, 20th Century Fox announced that they were going to be bringing the series back, and now we find ourselves less than a year away from the finished product’s release. But who is involved? What will it be about? Those are questions that we are here to directly address.

As we do here on CinemaBlend with all major upcoming films, we’ve constructed the guide below to provide you with all of the latest details and news about The Predator. We will regularly update this feature as more information comes in and we get closer to the release date, but for now, here’s what we know so far:

What Is The Predator Release Date?

Given that John McTiernan’s original Predator was released in 1987, it would have been nice if the latest addition to the franchise was able to come out in 2017, celebrating the sci-fi/action classic’s 30th anniversary. Sadly, this was a ball that was kind of dropped by 20th Century Fox, but the ultimate good news to take away is that fans will be seeing The Predator in theaters on September 14, 2018.

While September 2018 isn’t a complete dead zone, the month isn’t exactly packed with potential blockbusters, either, meaning that The Predator has a pretty good chance of finding and keeping an audience in that slot. The WWE biography Fighting With My Family, starring Lena Headey, Dwayne Johnson and Vince Vaughn debuts the same day. Meanwhile, Robin Hood, with Taron Egerton and Jamie Foxx, will open a week later. The last weekend of the month will see the animated Smallfoot, starring the voices of Channing Tatum, Gina Rodriguez and Zendaya, and the comedy Night School, with Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish, hit the big screen. Can any of these films take potential viewers away from The Predator? We’ll have to wait and see.

What Is The Predator Rating?

When it comes to movies about the Predator, audiences have really only seen a slight fluctuation in the ratings department. With the exception of Alien vs. Predator, which was given a PG-13 pass by the MPAA, every other film in the continuity/series — including Predator 2, Alien vs. Predator: Requiem, and Predators — has been rated R. This is thankfully a tradition that will continue with The Predator as well.

While official decisions about ratings typically aren’t made until a film has put together a theatrical edit to show the MPAA, we already know about The Predator‘s rating because the blockbuster’s director has been very open about it. As production on the movie was starting up in February 2017, writer/director Shane Black took to his personal Twitter account and wrote, “And, just to be clear… PG-13 is for pussies. Spines bleed… a lot” (a reference to the fact that the titular alien species collects spinal columns as trophies). Basically, this is a feature that is not being made with young kids in mind as the target audience.

What Will The Predator Be About?

Writer/director Shane Black and screenwriter Fred Dekker haven’t written a script together since 1987’s The Monster Squad, but the duo is back in action writing the script for The Predator — which most definitely fits within the continuity of Predator, Predator 2 and Predators and is absolutely not a reboot. The movie will be set in the present day — which is to say the year 2018 — and much like the original, it will primarily feature soldiers as its central protagonists.

Full details about The Predator plot haven’t been revealed yet, but we do know that the story will center on Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook), a former marine who discovers evidence that a Predator is on Earth. Unfortunately for him, nobody actually believes his claims, leading him to personally try and do something about it — part of which is assembling a team that can help him out. And, from what actor Thomas Jane revealed about the plot a few months ago, it sounds like putting this team together won’t be as cut and dry as it usually is in these types of films.

The part that I know about is the stuff that we did, and we play these veterans from like Afghanistan or whatever, the Iraq War. Whatever, you know? But we’re all fucking crazy, right? So we go to the VA hospital to get our meds, and we’re all shellshocked, PTSD soldiers. We’re at the VA hospital and we all, in like group therapy, and of course, somebody flips out. This is backstory, I don’t think we really see this, but somebody flips out and we all get arrested and thrown onto the bus to go down to the hospital, right? Then they throw this other guy on the bus, too, and he’s a guy that they’re actually marked to kill him. Because he’s seen the UFO. He’s seen The Predator ships come down. So they lock him up and they throw him in with us lunatics, and they’re gonna take [the] bus and drive us down into a ditch and shoot us all, just to get rid of this one guy. But, of course, we take the bus over and we’re all ‘fuck that, man. Let’s go kill these fucking Predators ourselves.’ We’re just crazy enough to believe that this guy really did see a UFO.

As you can see, the setup alone is pretty wild, which leads us to believe that The Predator will really be something special to behold.