Predator franchise gets a quadrilogy earlier on

[Migrant_Coconut]

Yeah, sans AvP, the best angle is probably a bunch of If It Bleeds stories: have a single clan coming back to Earth over and over again to fight different warriors through history, collecting and exchanging souvenirs of worthy opponents.

The Predator doesn't even have to die in all of them - maybe the human and yautja walk away best friends and meet again ten years later, maybe the human's grandson teams up with the yautja's daughter, maybe they fall in love, maybe a different one actually goes with them on the ship to join the hunt...

 

[cortz#9]

Yeah, sans AvP, the best angle is probably a bunch of If It Bleeds stories: have a single clan coming back to Earth over and over again to fight different warriors through history, collecting and exchanging souvenirs of worthy opponents.

The Predator doesn't even have to die in all of them - maybe the human and yautja walk away best friends and meet again ten years later, maybe the human's grandson teams up with the yautja's daughter, maybe they fall in love, maybe a different one actually goes with them on the ship to join the hunt...

Maybe the Pred kills all of his targets and just goes home at the end.
Doesn't always have to be a happy ending.

 

[I lurk therefore I am]

Yeah, sans AvP, the best angle is probably a bunch of If It Bleeds stories: have a single clan coming back to Earth over and over again to fight different warriors through history, collecting and exchanging souvenirs of worthy opponents.

The Predator doesn't even have to die in all of them - maybe the human and yautja walk away best friends and meet again ten years later, maybe the human's grandson teams up with the yautja's daughter, maybe they fall in love, maybe a different one actually goes with them on the ship to join the hunt...

That was kinda the ending of the first AvP story in the comics. The Ripley-esq human who survives being at the centre of Predators using a human colony to grow Aliens to hunt earns the respect of the Preds and ends up joining them on future Alien hunts.

 

[Migrant_Coconut]

That was kinda the ending of the first AvP story in the comics. The Ripley-esq human who survives being at the centre of Predators using a human colony to grow Aliens to hunt earns the respect of the Preds and ends up joining them on future Alien hunts.

That's arguably more of a Colonial Marines story; Machiko pretty much spends the entire time wanting to go back (and does). We never even find out the clan's names.

Maybe the Pred kills all of his targets and just goes home at the end.
Doesn't always have to be a happy ending.

No, but happy endings do extend the franchise - everybody dying usually means no plot threads.

 

[weNEEDlove]

No, but happy endings do extend the franchise - everybody dying usually means no plot threads.

Plot thread could be how that predator change as a character(?)

explore it in the sequel(?)

 

[Scotty]

if you want a link from Pred to Pred2...

keep the story as is, but make 2 a prequel. Have Carl Weathers play Dillon in the role that was Busey's in OTL

it muddies the waters even more as to what Dillon's real reason for being there in Pred1 actually is

;-)

 

[Strategos' Risk]

As per the story in the OP, Schwarzenegger was supposed to be Busey's character, but didn't like the reduced role and being turned into a villainous character, or the city setting. But maybe sub in Carl Weathers then to achieve a similar effect. Also it would be cool because both he and Glover are African American, and it's a story that doesn't go into human race issues at all, so you get some diversity/representation in casting without making racial issues an explicit topic, but someone can probably still read some implicit subtext into it and have a discussion out of it. So everyone wins. It would be an interesting creative choice. (Actually come to think of it, there were some accusations that Predator 2 was racially insensitive for its depiction of Jamaican gangs.)

 

[Migrant_Coconut]

Make it NYC - the studio could have the yautja hunting the Five Families or random Klan hideouts.

 

[Chillvillain]

You could set a film in a war zone, two or more sides who's first response to the Predator's arrival is to try and manipulate it into attacking their enemies. Could work even better if the conflict was frozen or a stalemate and using the Predator is seen as the best way to attack.

Not sure you could make a whole movie out of it but you could also have a Predator show up in the gladiatorial arena. Could be funny to have people's response to a creature from space that hunts humans for sport be, "Sounds awesome, bring him here."

 

[Naval Aviation Fan]

Some food for thought, I would introduce a book from 1978 that seems to be the foundation of the Predator's, before they were giant dreadlock sporting guys, they were something quite a bit different. Good read, but don't actually have a physical copy anymore. Here is a link.

As far as making more and better movies, #3 went from an exciting expectation of a real blockbuster, to a very disappointing dud of a film, so I would start there.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

As far as making more and better movies, #3 went from an exciting expectation of a real blockbuster, to a very disappointing dud of a film, so I would start there.

It's funny, both Predators and Terminator: Salvation came out around the same time and had all of the premise and potential to set their franchises back on the right track, with action in the right context, but both flamed out. Probably some backlash from the badness of the Alien vs. Predator movies dragged down Predators.

Like I said, the way I'd do this would be have the core series be about modern day badasses (and not just soldiers, in Glover's character's case) encountering the Predators and slowly forming a group to combat them on Earth, until they all get abducted and taken to the hunting grounds planet. And then you get spinoffs that show historical encounters with them. Speaking of which, now that Prey has been well-received, I wonder if the next step is they'll do more of those historical anthology stories- I think based on the end credits, Naru's story isn't done yet, so neither is the era.