Predator franchise gets a quadrilogy earlier on

[Strategos' Risk]

Had an idle idea today. So take the Glover/Schwarzengger buddy cop-commando concept as well as Predators to be about dealing with a group of Yautja. My idea is to set it in the Old World: in Germany's Black Forest, specifically. The original movie was set in the literal jungle, and the second one was set in the urban jungle. I toyed around having the third one be set in something like a desert, but that seems like something more for later on in the franchise when you're running out of ideas, so let's keep it in the woods. The Black Forest, with the Germanic tribal traditions of boar hunting and so forth, could be something cool to tap into, and a little more tasteful and more original than just doing another exotic (to Americans) locale like say a jungle in Africa or the Pacific. Also, and I know this is somewhat breaking Hollywood's kayfabe of having Arnold play good all-American heroes, tie it to Dutch's background somehow. Even if it doesn't portray him as an immigrant-turned-Vietnam vet, he could say his family was from southern Germany or something as a nod to his actual Austrian ancestry.

So the duo hear about mysterious murders in the area and deploy there. Maybe even under the command of a special government force investigating the Predator menace. They have a lot of buddy cop chemistry- though I wonder if this might be somewhat limiting Glover, given that he already does this in Lethal Weapon!- and then uncover there's a group of Predators stalking the area. Arnold gets to do some ass-kicking and spooky chases through the forest. Maybe having defeated a Predator, the pack are reluctant to kill him right away, or they try to capture him after he gets too good at killing their group. Either way the two get separated at some point and the last act takes place in a looming gothic castle full of traps. At the very end Glover figures out the mystery and Arnold kills the head Predator leader with a traditional Germanic boar hunting spear.

I was thinking of including a rival team of high-tech Predator hunters working on behalf of a shadowy Japanese megacorporation (early '90s, yo), but that might clash with the setting a little too much. Also a little too reminiscent of Robocop 3. However, I think having a rival team of doomed prey would be cool, maybe they're European mercenaries led by a shadowy old-school English megacorp (for the other half of the Aliens/20th Century Fox dyad), with references to the Japanese. Then the fourth movie will take place in Japan, with both scenes in Tokyo (urban jungle) and the actual jungle being perhaps Japan's infamous Aokigahara suicide forest! Also it will have an augmented team of Japanese cyber-ninjas. The focus will be about two groups of Predators warring on Earth and thus be called Predator 4: Clan Wars.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

Or we can have the grizzly veteran with the rookie sceptic, what the predator should have been

Combining my research about how Schwarzenegger lost interest in the franchise after the original, and my "Predator franchise accidentally invents MCU post-credits scenes" idea from up-thread, maybe Dutch turns into the "cigar-chomping man" who shows up at the end of each installment, recruiting new badasses who can take on the fiendish ultimate warriors from outer space.

So have Lundgren or Van Damme (who are both at least a decade younger than Arnold) or some other similar action star paired with Danny Glover in my Predators: Old World concept, and have each successive sequel be another modern day warrior from more and more disparate and diverse backgrounds join Dutch's anti-Predator operation. I'll let someone else come up with the squad's name and acronym. Each installment adds a new action star, until they have enough full-fleshed out characters to do a better version of OTL's Predators (2010), with the entire squad thrown into the Predator hunting grounds planet. Maybe for that one the studio pays Schwarzenegger enough to finally come back into action. Actually, think less Avengers-style build up and more like The Expendables except not a half-ironic nostalgia fest made after the action movie wave is over.

Too bad this kind of crossover thinking didn't exist in the '90s. Imagine The Expendables with the stars in their prime.