'The Predator' Trailer: Shane Black Resurrects The Franchise For A New Generation

Shane Black hopes to breathe new life into the stagnant Predator franchise with The Predator, the latest continuation in the series that started back in 1987. The new Predator trailer gives us a better look at the action and alien-based horror to come. Does this new trailer improve on the somewhat lackluster first trailer? See for yourself below.

I want to get excited about Shane Black's The Predator. I really do. Black is a phenomenal writer and filmmaker, and he's assembled an excellent cast here, including Boyd Holbrook, Trevante Rhodes, Jacob Tremblay, Keegan-Michael Key, Olivia Munn, Sterling K. Brown, Alfie Allen, Thomas Jane, Augusto Aguilera, Jake Busey and Yvonne Strahovski. But the firs trailer for the film was a bit disappointing. For one thing, it kept most of the Predator action off-screen. For another, none of Black's trademark snappy dialogue was present in the footage we saw. This new trailer is an improvement, but I'm still a little worried.

Still, you can't judge a film by its trailer, and I hope that when The Predator opens in September, it ends up delivering. The Predator series has had a strange journey over the years. The franchise kicked-off in 1987 with John McTiernan's gritty jungle-based horror flick Predator, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. The saga continued in 1990 with Predator 2, which moved the action into the city, and starred Danny Glover. Then came the rather terrible Alien vs. Predator films in 2004 and 2007. 2010's Predators attempted to course-correct the franchise, but didn't go according to plan. Now here comes The Predator, which will either get the series back on track, or let us down once again.

"I think that there's a basic premise that has to be honored every time you make a Predator film and that's in some way, whatever the plot turns out to be, it has to, at some level, represent a hunt," Black said during our set visit, adding:

 "We just tried to take the existing mythology and take it a step further. Ask some questions about why? Why Predators do what they do? What would be the next step for them? How do we up the stakes so that there's not just a single Predator hunting a group of soldiers? Who are the soldiers? How are they different? What's the heroic quotient and how do you make it not just guys with tough talk and big arms?"

The Predator opens September 14, 2018.

From the outer reaches of space to the small-town streets of suburbia, the hunt comes home in Shane Black's explosive reinvention of the Predator series. Now, the universe's most lethal hunters are stronger, smarter and deadlier than ever before, having genetically upgraded themselves with DNA from other species. When a young boy accidentally triggers their return to Earth, only a ragtag crew of ex-soldiers and a disgruntled science teacher can prevent the end of the human race.