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Interview: Shane Black on the Making of ‘The Predator’

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No one has had a longer history with the Predator film series than Shane Black.  In the summer of 1986, Black traveled to Mexico to play Rick Hawkins, a comic book-loving soldier who became the first victim in the 1987 film Predator

All photos courtesy of Fox

After the blockbuster success of 2013’s Iron Man 3, which Black co-wrote and directed, Black started giving serious thought to the idea of revisiting, and reinventing, the Predator film series. 

More than thirty years after portraying Rick Hawkins in the first Predator film, Black is awaiting the release of his latest directorial effort, The Predator, which Black co-wrote with longtime friend Fred Dekker.

Black says that his goal with The Predator was to recapture the excitement and suspense contained within the 1987 film while answering questions regarding the Predator creatures and their origin planet. 

In this interview, Black describes the long journey he’s taken with the Predator film series, from actor to director, and explains what sets The Predator apart from the previous Predator sequels and spinoff films. 

DG: What is it about the first Predator film that’s still so exciting, more than thirty years after the film’s release?

SB: The first Predator film was a zeitgeist film.  Predator was pure pulp entertainment.  Predator combined the alien movie craze, inspired by James Cameron’s Aliens, and the Rambo war movie craze.  Predator also had mystery and tension.  I think that Predator is the ultimate genre film.

DG: I read that, besides acting in Predator, you wanted to study the craft of filmmaking, with an eye towards eventually making your feature directorial debut.  What did you learn, as a filmmaker, during the making of Predator?

SB: I saw how a director operated on the set of a feature film.  I saw what actors did when they were filming and when they weren’t filming.  I studied John [McTiernan] as he was lining up shots, and I also paid attention to the work he did when he wasn’t filming.  At night, when he had free time, he would look around, study future filming locations, prepare a speech he wanted to deliver to the cast and crew.  He was prepared for anything that might happen.  This was all fresh to me.

FIND OUT WHY SHANE BLACK WANTED TO REVISIT THE PREDATOR FILM SERIES IN PART TWO OF THE INTERVIEW

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‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

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It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

Evil Dead Rise

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

High Desert Hell
The Gemini Project

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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

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Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

Happy Sad Confused

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

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Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

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