It’s now confirmed that the Shane Black The Predator movie is set in the suburbs.
An earlier description of the new Predator raised eyebrows when it offered: “the story plunks the alien hunter — whom audiences have seen fight in jungles, concrete jungles, frozen wastelands and alien planets — in the harsh environment of … suburbia.”
This caused Shane Black to reach out to Collider a while back and seemingly shoot down the notion of The Predator in the suburbs as he said: “Don’t expect any suburban ‘Predator lurking in rich, fancy swimming pools’ scenes.”
Now the head of Fox Studios, Stacey Snider, does confirm the Shane Black Predator movie does take place in the suburbs.
In an update on the studio’s franchises while speaking with Variety, Snider says:
We’ve got a “Predator” film coming out that is unexpected and utterly fresh. I just imagined that it would take 500 hours to read the script — that it would be interior jungle, exterior more jungle and then fighting happens, but Emma [Watts] went out and recruited Shane Black. From the first page, it didn’t read like a “Predator” film. It’s set in suburbia. There’s a little boy and his dad at the center of the action.
Now to be fair, just because The Predator is set in the suburbs doesn’t mean it is going to be a bad movie. As Shane Black himself says, it’s not like Predator is going to be cooking hot dogs with the family. As noted, it could be a fresh take on the franchise, so I’m willing to give it a chance.
The Predator will be released August 3, 2018 starring Olivia Munn, Trevante Rhode, Boyd Holbrook, Thomas Jane, Strerling K. Brown, Keegan-Michael Key, Niall Matter, Yvonne Strahovski, Alfie Allen, Edward James Olmos and Jacob Tremblay.