Robert Rodriguez Claims Predators Sequel In Development At Fox

I was one of the people praising the Robert Rodriguez-produced Nimrod Antal-directed Predator sequel Predators a few weeks back. I even screened the film twice. Don't get me wrong, the movie is far from perfect, but for a lower budget studio sci-fi effort, it's better than most — and certainly better than Predator 2 or the two Alien vs. Predator films.

The film grossed $46 million domestically thus far — which might sound low, but is actually more than the film's estimated $35-$40 million budget. The movie has also made $48.2 million internationally, for a $94.7 worldwide total. In just 17 days, that isn't bad. And the studio is likely to make some good cash on home video as well. But is it good enough for a sequel? The film certainly concludes with the slight promise of another outing. Robert Rodriguez claims that 20th Century Fox is already developing a sequel.

At Comic-Con, Rodriguez told IGN:

"[The studio] said, 'Let's do some other ones. What other story ideas do you have?'" says the filmmaker. "Because it was like, let's test out the market with this one. They really wanted it to be pretty contained, pretty scaled-back. They didn't want to put too many of the ideas into it that we could save for a second one. So we could see what the appetite was, because the bigger movie would actually be what comes following that. That kind of sets up a new storyline, new location and world, and then you can really go crazy from there."

Rodriguez even has an idea for what can happen in the next film, and says they he will probably have writers pitch their different versions of his basic premise, before the project progresses into the script phase. When asked what a possible Predators sequel might be called at the junket press confrence, this is how Robert responded:

And as far as the "Predator" title, I didn't reference any of the other later pictures, only because when I originally wrote this, those didn't exist. I was writing this always as a sequel. In fact, "Predator 2" had come out, but they didn't want to go that direction, they wanted to get Arnold back. So when I wrote "Predators," it was to forget that even "Predator 2" was made. This is going to be "Aliens" was to "Alien," that's what "Predators" is to "Predator," so I'll just tie those two together, so all you would ever have to do is watch "Predator" and "Predators," and you would have a little complete thing. So, yeah, what would the third one be if there was a third one? It would be "Predator 3," I guess. [laughter] No, "Predators 2." [laughter] I don't know. "Predators" with a subtitle.

I'm guessing if it ever happens, it will be Predators with a subtitle. As much as I'd like to see another Predators film, the box office figures are big enough to make Fox demand it happen. Until we see the official greenlight, I'm going to take all of this with a grain of salt. Rodriguez often talks a good game, and produces much less than he promises.