Release of Shane Black’s The Predator pushed back six more weeks

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Originally scheduled for a March 2, 2018 release, director Shane Black's THE PREDATOR, an "inventive sequel" to 1987's PREDATOR, was then pushed up to a February 9, 2018 release date before filming began. THE PREDATOR would have been in theatres right now, but during filming it was pushed back to an August 3, 2018 release date – and that was a delay Black was happy with, since it would allow him to spend more time fine tuning the film in post-production.

Exhibitor Relations reports that THE PREDATOR has now been delayed again, moving back another six weeks to September 14, 2018. Speculation is that 20th Century Fox is trying to replicate some of the success Warner Bros. had by releasing IT on September 8th last year.

THE PREDATOR sets its sights on Sept. 14, 2018 instead of August 3rd. Obviously hoping to scare up some of that mad money Stephen King's IT made last year in what is typically a box office dead zone.

— Exhibitor Relations (@ERCboxoffice) February 13, 2018

Black is probably fine with this delay as well, because next month he'll be heading back to Vancouver, where THE PREDATOR was shot, for another seventeen days of filming. These reshoots are set to begin on March 12th and continue through the 29th.

THE PREDATOR was written by Black and his THE MONSTER SQUAD collaborator Fred Dekker. According to cast member Thomas Jane, he and other members of the ensemble 

play these veterans from like Afghanistan, Iraq war or whatever. But we’re all f*cking crazy so we go to the VA hospital to get our meds. We’re all like shellshocked, PTSD soldiers. We’re at the VA hospital and we’re in group therapy and of course, somebody flips out… this is back story, I don’t think we really see this… somebody flips out and we all get arrested and get thrown onto the bus to go down to the hospital and they throw this other guy on the bus, too. And he’s a guy they’ve actually marked to kill him because he’s seen a UFO, he’s seen the Predator ships come down, so they lock him up and throw him in with us lunatics. They’re going to take that bus, drive it down to a ditch and shoot us all just to get rid of this one guy. But, of course, we take the bus over and we’re all like ‘F*ck that man, let’s go kill these f*cking Predators ourselves’ and we’re just crazy enough to believe that this guy really did see a UFO and there’s these aliens out there."

Jane's co-stars include Boyd Holbrook, Trevante Rhodes, Alfie Allen, Keegan-Michael Key, Augusto Aguilera, Yvonne Strahovski, Jacob Tremblay, Olivia Munn, Sterling K. Brown, and Edward James Olmos, with Jake Busey as the son of the character his father Gary Busey played in PREDATOR 2.

A novelization of THE PREDATOR written by Christopher Golden had been set to reach stores on August 7th. That release might get pushed back so the book will be out after the film. A prequel novel, The Predator: Hunters and Hunted by James A. Moore, could still be given a June 5th release. We'll have to wait and see.