UFC champion Conor McGregor says he turned down The Predator

Last Updated on July 21, 2021

There were a lot of names floated around in connection to the lead role in THE PREDATOR, director Shane Black's "inventive sequel" to the 1987 sci-fi action classic PREDATOR. It was rumored that Ben Affleck, Tom Hardy, and Christian Bale were on Black's wish list. James Franco's reps supposedly wanted to get him in the running. Benicio del Toro signed on, then had to drop out of the project due to scheduling issues. Eventually the role was secured by Boyd Holbrook.

Someone who was never mentioned is Irish UFC fighter Conor McGregor, but according to McGregor himself he was offered the part and turned it down. McGregor said this during an interview with An Experience With, and while the interview has since been removed this is the sort of thing that the internet doesn't forget once it has been released into the world.

As transcribed by the folks over at AVPGalaxy, this is what McGregor had to say about his near-miss with THE PREDATOR:

I’ll tell you there’s a lot of offers that I’ve turned down. I got offered The Predator movie. There’s a new Predator movie coming out and the guys came to me – did you see that horse thing I’ve done, the horse racing? That was like three days solid work for a hell of a lot of money, for three days. During that three day course, the people from Predator who are having this new Predator movie, a blockbuster… They came in and tried to the sell the whole shit. “We want you to be the main guy and you’re gonna fight [the] Predator” and I’m like “this sounds brilliant! How much?”

Not enough. We went back and forth negotiating and the number climbed up but if I was to do it would mean eight weeks in Canada, in Toronto or somewhere. It’s too long a time. You can’t do a million things at once. The Pegasus thing was one thing because it was like three days, in and out. But seven, eight weeks on a film set is heavy as f*ck. Plus it would have crept in around when [my son is] due. I didn’t want to get tricky with that so I turned down that offer."

I have no familiarity with McGregor at all, so I don't know what it might have been like if he did star in THE PREDATOR, but he does seem like an out-of-nowhere choice. For a sample of his acting abilities, the Pegasus commercial he mentions in the interview can be seen below.

McGregor won't be in THE PREDATOR, but Holbrook is joined in the cast by Olivia Munn, Thomas Jane, Keegan-Michael Key, Jacob Tremblay, Trevante Rhodes, and Sterling K. Brown. The film is scheduled be released on February 9, 2018.