60 Fun Facts About Predator

In which year was the original Predator released?

It opened at number one in the US in June with $12 million and finished the year twelfth at the domestic box office.

Who directed the original Predator?

It was his first studio film; he made Die Hard the following year.

What is the surname of Arnold Schwarzenegger's character, Major Alan "Dutch"?

He returned as a playable character in the games Alien vs. Predator (1994) and Predator: Hunting Grounds (2020).

What was the script's working title before it became Predator?

The first concept involved several species of alien hunters chasing various targets before it was streamlined to one creature and one soldier.

Which sibling screenwriting duo wrote Predator?

As unknowns, they resorted to slipping the script under the door of a Fox producer, and later wrote Predator 2 as well.

Which martial-arts star was originally cast as the Predator before being replaced?

At 5 feet 9 he looked too small next to the bodybuilder cast, and he reportedly kept complaining that the suit was too hot.

Which 7-foot-2 actor ultimately played the Predator?

He could not see out of the mask and had to rehearse with it off, memorising where everything was.

The actor inside the Predator suit had just played the sasquatch in which family film?

That film won Rick Baker the Best Makeup Oscar the same year the Predator was classed as a visual effect.

Which effects artist created the final Predator creature after the original design was scrapped?

He had worked with Schwarzenegger on The Terminator, and his creature earned the film its only Oscar nomination.

Which director, sitting beside the effects artist on a plane, suggested giving the creature mandibles?

He said he had always wanted to see a creature with mandibles, and they became the Predator's signature.

Who composed Predator's score, his first major action movie?

He was hired off the back of Back to the Future and returned for the sequel, the only composer to score more than one Alien or Predator film.

Which Little Richard song plays in the helicopter as the team flies into the jungle?

One of the soldiers later recites lines from it while chasing the creature through the trees.

Who plays CIA agent Al Dillon, Dutch's old Vietnam ally?

He was the producers' first choice thanks to his turn as Apollo Creed, and he secretly trained at 3 a.m. so his physique looked effortless.

What name did the internet give the arm-clasping greeting between Dutch and Dillon?

It later became an object-labelling meme, with a painting of the two arms agreeing or fighting over something.

Jesse Ventura plays which heavy gunner on Dutch's team?

The former Navy SEAL and wrestler co-starred with Schwarzenegger again the same year in The Running Man.

Ventura later served as governor of which state, from 1999 to 2003?

Schwarzenegger became governor of California in 2003, making Predator the rare film with two future governors in its cast.

Which cast member ran unsuccessfully for governor of Kentucky in 2003?

He played the team's tracker; his co-stars Ventura and Schwarzenegger both actually won governorships.

Which member of the cast went on to direct the 2018 sequel The Predator?

He plays the bespectacled radio operator in the original and co-wrote the 2018 film with Fred Dekker.

Which team member is the first to be killed by the Predator?

He is killed after catching the fleeing prisoner, who is spared.

Bill Duke plays which sergeant, who provokes the team into blindly firing into the jungle?

He had co-starred with Schwarzenegger in an earlier Joel Silver action film two years before.

Which character, the team's expert tracker, is the first to sense something inhuman in the jungle?

He later stays behind on a log bridge to face the creature alone.

What is the name of the guerrilla prisoner played by Elpidia Carrillo?

She recounts local folktales of a monster that kills men and takes trophies when the weather is hot.

Why does the Predator spare the guerrilla prisoner?

Dutch realises this and tells her to drop her weapon and run for the extraction point.

What does Dutch cover himself in to hide from the Predator's thermal vision?

Schwarzenegger spent three weeks caked in it for the climactic fight.

The film is set in which region?

The writers chose it because US special forces were constantly operating there at the time.

Most of Predator was actually filmed near which Mexican resort city?

Shooting began in the jungles of Palenque, Chiapas, and most of the cast and crew suffered from bad water at their hotel.

Roughly how much did Predator gross worldwide on its original release?

About $60 million of that came from the US and Canada, on a budget of around $15 million.

Predator received a single Academy Award nomination, in which category?

The Academy struggled to classify the creature, then gave the award to Innerspace.

What colour suit did a stand-in wear to create the Predator's cloaking effect?

The colour was chosen as the furthest opposite of the jungle green and sky blue, then removed with chroma key and filled with a wider-lens plate.

The Predator's glowing green blood was made from glow-stick liquid mixed with what?

The electrical spark effects were rotoscoped by hand on light tables.

Which earlier Schwarzenegger movie convinced Joel Silver to make Predator big-budget?

Bill Duke and Schwarzenegger came over from that film, and Silver brought in his old boss Lawrence Gordon as co-producer.

How did the unknown screenwriters get their script noticed at 20th Century Fox?

The producer, Michael Levy, later served as executive producer on Predator 2.

Production halted in April 1986 so Schwarzenegger could fly to Hyannis Port to marry whom?

He honeymooned for only three days while the second unit kept shooting.

How much weight did both the director and Schwarzenegger reportedly lose during the shoot?

The star did it on purpose; the director lost his by avoiding the local food over health worries.

Who provided the voice of the Predator?

The physical performance and the voice came from two different men.

Predator 2 (1990) moved the hunt from the jungle to which city?

The story is set in 1997 during a heatwave and a gang war between Colombian and Jamaican cartels.

Who stars as the police lieutenant hunting the creature in Predator 2?

Schwarzenegger declined to return, so a new hero was needed.

Which famous Easter egg appears among the trophy skulls aboard the Predator ship in Predator 2?

Fox owned both franchises and the same effects shop worked on both, and the gag eventually spawned two crossover films.

Why did Schwarzenegger not return for Predator 2?

Early drafts had featured Dutch; Stephen Hopkins directed the film without him.

Which Oscar-winning actor leads the group of abducted killers in Predators (2010)?

The film's producer said the plural title was a nod to Aliens.

Which filmmaker wrote a third Predator script as early as 1994 and eventually produced Predators?

Fox did not greenlight the project until 2009; Nimrod Antal directed.

The 2022 prequel Prey is set in which year?

The story takes place on the Northern Great Plains, three centuries before Dutch's mission.

Prey's heroine Naru belongs to which nation?

The film was the first feature to be released with a full dub in that language, performed by the original cast.

Who directed Prey and then Predator: Badlands?

He had pitched the Prey concept with writer Patrick Aison as far back as 2016.

Prey skipped cinemas in the US and premiered on which streaming service?

It debuted at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2022 before streaming in August.

Which actress plays the android Thia in Predator: Badlands (2025)?

For the first time the franchise made a Predator, the exiled runt Dek, its protagonist.

Thia, the android in Predator: Badlands, was built by which corporation from the Alien films?

The company link is another thread tying the two franchises together.

By what name is the Predator species known in comics, novels and later films?

Expanded-universe media also used names such as Hish-Qu-Ten and Skin Thieves before Yautja stuck.

The 2025 animated film Killer of Killers brings back Dutch and which other franchise hero?

The city detective had not been seen on screen since 1990.

Which line from the film became permanently attached to Schwarzenegger, later reused in ads and TV?

He revived it on The New Celebrity Apprentice and in commercials for the game Mobile Strike.

The original, rejected Predator design by Boss Film Studios had which feature?

It was ungainly and too slow for the jungle, prompting the call for a redesign.

Which video game featured the Predator as a playable outfit and hidden enemy in 2021?

The skin granted the creature's cloaking and shoulder-cannon abilities.

Which composer did Joel Silver first want for the score, before he proved unavailable?

He had just worked with Silver on Lethal Weapon but was busy on Adventures in Babysitting.

Which company released a side-scrolling Predator video game the year the film came out?

Dutch later returned as a playable character in Predator: Hunting Grounds, with Schwarzenegger voicing him.

How much did Predator gross in its number-one US opening weekend in June 1987?

It finished 12th at the domestic box office for 1987, with about $59.7 million from the US and Canada.

Predator 2 holds what distinction regarding the MPAA's then-new NC-17 rating?

Excess violence and nudity earned the rating; the film was re-cut to an R for its theatrical release.

Alien vs. Predator (2004) is set on Bouvetøya, an island roughly 1,000 miles north of where?

Lance Henriksen plays billionaire Charles Bishop Weyland, drawn to a buried pyramid giving off a 'heat bloom'.

Which publisher announced in July 2020 that it had acquired the Predator comic-book rights?

Dark Horse had long published Predator lines, including Fire and Stone and Life and Death set after Prometheus.

Which prequel short for Predators aired as a TV and cinema advertisement before the film's release?

The 2010 home-video release also included the shorts Moments of Extraction and Crucified.

Where did Entertainment Weekly rank Predator on its 2007 list of the greatest action movies of all time?

Film.com's C. Robert Cargill called it the seventh-best film of 1987, 'often imitated, but never properly duplicated'.