Nimród Antal talks Predator reboot

Posted on December 1, 2009
Filed Under Actors, Directors, Remake, Sequel

One of our favorite movie monsters of all time, in all categories,  is without a doubt the Predator. When John McTiernan released his epic horror-sci-fi masterpiece back in 1987 it was love at first sight. Man, what a movie… Anyway, since then we have seen a sequel and two spin offs. The sequel had it’s moments but the spin offs is just sad. And now, director Nimród Antal is filming a reboot. The guys and girls over at ComingSoon had a little chat with Mr. Antal recently about the project.

“So far, it’s been great, and I think that the fans who may have been underwhelmed by the last two AVP films, I think they’re in for a very pleasant surprise,” he told us tentatively when asked how it was going.

Since the movie’s title seemingly will include Robert Rodriguez’s name even though the Austin-based filmmaker isn’t directing, we were curious how involved Rodriguez was in the actual making of the movie. “Robert hired me, so obviously I’m very grateful for him giving me a shot. He is involved in the screenplay and we’ve had a lot of conversations, and any big decisions I want to make, I always speak to him about, but he’s been very gracious and he’s been letting me do my thing. He’s really let me perform and he’s let me dance, so again, I’m grateful to him for that.”

While Rodriguez has embraced doing things using CG animation, Antal has preferred the aesthetics of doing things practical and in-camera over the years, so we wondered whether they were able to find a happy balance there. “I think we both recognize that the original film was as good as it was because of the practical, because it was a guy in a suit, because it was the jungle, so we stay true to that. We were in Hawaii for a month in the jungle, so there’s going to be some pretty impressive locations.”

When asked about the somewhat eyebrow-raising casting, he answered: “I think when we cast Adrien Brody, there were a lot of people going, ‘What?’ but at the same time, if we cast a Vin Diesel in that role or if we cast anyone who is Arnold-esque, we would have been attacked for doing that. So we decided early on to go in a very different direction as far as the casting process, but it turned out fantastic. He plays a mercenary in the film and if you look at the guys in Iraq and Afghanistan today, they’re not ‘yolked-out’ Schwarzenegger-looking guys. They’re all very wiry and thin guys, and I think it’s going to play well.”

When asked whether Arnold Schwarzenegger himself might make an appearance, Antal remained coy, only saying, “Time will tell. We’ll see, but we are trying to stay with the original as far as the monster and the atmosphere and the tone of the film, but we are trying to do something new and contemporary and feels fresh.”

As far as I’m concerned it’s about the tone and the setting of the movie. Less CG and more hands on aesthetic sounds very promising. Schwarzenegger or no Schwarzenegger, I’m not sure that’s pivotal to the film. Just show some respect to McTiernan’s vision and you’ll be fine.

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