Thomas O’Connor on Shane Black’s recent comments from Shane Black on making The Predator about “spectacle”…
The original Predator isn’t exactly what you’d call a “big” movie in terms of scale and scope. Sure, there’s a fairly big gunfight and a massive explosion at the end, but for the most part it’s actually rather small, with a very limited cast and mostly one location: a South American jungle. This is partly due to it being a product of its time; an era when studio budgets could only feed a small town for a few years rather than a small sovereign nation for a decade or two. But this is also by intent. Predator, despite the guns and explosions and Arnold Schwarzenegger, really has more in common with a horror film than a typical action-fest. Sure, the film starts with a team of muscle-bound 80s action-movie types reducing an enemy base to a smoking heap in a blaze of automatic weapons fire, but it also features those same men being utterly trounced by an enemy they can’t even see. Like coeds in a slasher movie, they get picked off one by one, utterly powerless in the face of a superior foe. That iconic scene where Arnie and the gang fire wildly into the jungle, unloading their weapons into the (defenseless) foliage? That scene isn’t about machismo or power, quite the opposite in fact. Remember that brazen display of military might and the destructive power of a hail of bullets accomplishes exactly nothing. The titular predator is, aside from a scrape or two, unfazed by this display. That scene is about impotence and powerlessness, about how these previously in-control alpha male specimens are now completely out of their depth. While they could previously solve any problem with a prolonged burst of fire, those days are over.
That’s what the whole film was about, really. In the midst of the golden era of the swaggering, muscle-bound, machine-gun brandishing action hero, Predator spent a healthy chunk of its runtime killing off a whole crew of such characters, many of them in ways that completely stripped them of their power and agency. It was a movie about dis-empowerment, about being suddenly trapped in a hostile environment. It was about being on your own, in somewhere unfamiliar, cut off from any help. It was about being hunted. The limited cast and environment added to this, giving the film an intimate, claustrophobic feeling in its second half. In the same way that the cramped locales and small cast added to the tension of the original Alien, Predator‘s fairly small scope helped it to accomplish its goal.
This is all important to bear in mind given Shane Black’s recent comments in an interview for his upcoming film The Nice Guys. On working on the Predator franchise and what drew him to the project, Black had this to say.
“They called me and I was reluctant. I said, “Look. You guys at Fox, I mean, I enjoy these movies, but we’ve been churning out these AVP whatever, they each cost a certain amount of money, they’re okay, but there’s no effort to elevate them or make them any kind of an event.” They’re just sort of another Predator. “Oh, there’s another one that came out.” They said, “What if we said to you we want to reinvent this, and really treat it with as much of an event status, or as much hoopla as we would the Alien prequel, which is coming out also? We really want to make this something. The kind of movie that people line up for.” I said, “Really, you’ll spend a bunch of money?” They go, “Yep.” I go, “Make it really scale, spectacle?” “Yep.” “S***, that sounds interesting.” ”
“I think the first one was great, and it was contained, and it was a perfect little gem for what it was. I think there’s an expansion that needs to take place, and also just a love for that era, that movie, and the mythology of the Predator. I think that they came to me knowing pretty much that… they said, basically, if I wanted to make Predator but treat it like it was Iron Man 3 instead of just another little movie. I said, “Let’s really do it right this time.”
Now, Black’s comments can mean a lot of things. “Scale” and “spectacle” can mean a lot. But ultimately, it’s very hard to read these comments as something other than that Black intends to “go big” with the Predator franchise, taking it to a larger scale on the level of Prometheus and his previous work on Iron Man 3. What this probably means is big locales, big set pieces, big everything. It might not mean that, admittedly….but what else could it mean?
In order to survive, franchises like Predator absolutely need to evolve and grow. Change is needed to keep things from becoming stale, and fresh ideas and perspectives can revitalize a stale franchise. But is “going bigger” really the direction a franchise like Predator needs to go in? Thrillist’s Matt Patches even brought this up, saying that “Fans of the original may not imagine Predator as a giant blockbuster.”
A successful revitalization of the franchise can’t just be a retread of the first film. But it also needs to change and grow in a way that makes sense for the franchise, and “bigger” doesn’t entirely make sense for a franchise that began the way Predator did, as a relatively small, “contained” film, to borrow Black’s own words. Sure, you -can- turn the Predator universe into a big, sweeping epic in the style of Prometheus, or a non-stop action-fest like Mad Max: Fury Road….but should you?
It’s especially interesting that these comments come within days of the first reviews for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and that among the many criticisms is that its massive scope and scale feel overwhelming. Critics are saying that it feels big, loud and exhausting, and not in good ways. Although there’s always room for spectacle and scale at the box office, that doesn’t mean that that’s the only way to go. Look at other recent genre films that won big with critics, and have gone on to have cult followings. There’s Dredd, which eschewed big set pieces in lieu of a consistent location and relatively small gunfights and showdowns. Look at the sci-fi thinker Ex Machina, which had a core cast of around four people and just about as many sets. You could even look at Deadpool, which had a miniscule budget compared to its competitors in the superhero movie genre, and in a lot of ways it showed. The film had one admittedly massive set piece, but the only other major action beat in the film was a small encounter on a stalled highway. Put simply, these movies were not “bigger”, but they were still “better”.
Why was the promise of a massive scope, scale, and yes…a lot of money the thing that got this new Predator movie into production? Are we making movies now simply because we have the ability to make them big, to throw spectacle and “events” into the mix? Never mind that the Predator franchise becoming a big, epic spectacle may not be the best move for the series. The initial reception for Batman v Superman has indicated that films that overwhelm the senses and deafen the audience with scope, scale and spectacle are starting to wear thin. And while people are already brushing off the opinions of critics speaking ill of Batman v Superman as the out-of-touch words of a bunch of stuffy elitists (as people so often do), it’s important to remember that critics often make very good points about the films they’re critiquing.
Of course, it’s nothing new to hear that spectacle and “events” are the driving force in Hollywood, but it’s still troubling to hear that a director of Black’s caliber was drawn to a film purely on the promise of large-scale spectacle rather than, oh say, a solid script, or an interesting new idea. No, what drew Shane Black to the new Predator was that the studio wanted to make it “big”. Black’s reasons for wanting to do the movie, are entirely his own, and he’s allowed to make a movie for whatever reason he pleases. But at the same time, does this attitude strike anyone else as endemic of a fascination with spectacle and scale that, as the BvS reviews indicate, may already be wearing thin, and places less importance on films being good than with being “big”? Does it strike no one else as a problem when the selling point for a film is not quality, but scale?
Call these the cantankerous complaints of a stuffy, out-of-touch critic if you want. But there are a million possible reasons to be drawn to the idea of a new Predator film, or any movie for that matter. The idea that it could be turned into a massive, expensive spectacle probably shouldn’t be one of them. As has been said countless times, bigger is not better, especially not in the case of franchises like Predator. And yet, scale has become a selling point, both for audiences and filmmakers. Yes, maybe we do need more “just another little movie” movies, but more importantly we also need movies that are good. Good not because they’re big, but because they’re GOOD. In today’s blockbuster climate, size seems to be the only thing that matters. Big effects, but set-pieces, big releases. In this writer’s estimation, this is a hugely unhealthy attitude. This is, put simply, wrong-headed, as others have pointed out before when evaluating the current state of the modern blockbuster. Shane Black’s The Predator may turn out to be a fine piece of cinema. But still, his comments are troubling, and point to a larger problem with the industry that must be addressed.
Thomas O’Connor
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