The Predator director Shane Black confirms that “PG-13 is for pussies”

Let it never be said that the Predator movies are for kids. A franchise built on the back of an intergalactic hunter whose favourite fatality is Sub-Zero’s original Mortal Kombat spine-ripping finisher isn’t exactly suitable for tweens. And it’d be hard to imagine the iconic antagonist as anything other than a merciless hunter whose disarming techniques robbed Apollo Creed of his killer left hook.

But in a Hollywood landscape where getting as many eyeballs into cinemas is paramount these days, you’d expect the latest incarnation of the franchise to be toning down the violence so that it can land that potentially lucrative PG-13 rating. Ha! Guess again, because Rated-R is the new black lately. Or as The Predator director Shane Black tweeted yesterday:

And, just to be clear… PG-13 is for pussies. Spines bleed… a lot.

— Shane Black (@BonafideBlack) February 18, 2017

AW YISS SUCKA. Black also revealed a first look at most of the primary cast, which will be led by Escobar-hunter supreme Boyd Holbrook when filming starts this week, alongside Trevante Rhodes, Olivia Munn, Keegan-Michael Key, Sterling K. Brown and Jacob Tremblay:

Holbrook is obviously playing a soldiery type of fella, alongside a more expendable cast of characters who’ll also be revealed later on as filming kicks off. Black’s plan so far, has been to assemble a team who resemble the original special forces crew who got sent into the jungles and met a grisly fate, a referential idea he explained to Collider last year:

I think it’ll be interesting to get a group of credible guys—the hallmark of the first one is you have guys together that are kinda funny and self-referential and also very tough. I don’t know that we’re going to deviate over much from that, but there are at least a couple of factors that we’ve deliberately chosen to make it not just that group of buff, tough guys.

And I’m digging the progress so far! Black’s entire approach to The Predator has been reminiscent of what made the original films so great (I’m hoping Jake Busey pops up as a legacy reminder to Predator 2 fans), and the fact that Black is adamant that there’ll be several buckets worth of special effects blood splashed around just fills that broken part of me with joy. And now for the long wait as The Predator will only be out next year on February 9.

Last Updated: February 21, 2017