There’s a common notion that movies with R ratings rarely make big profits at the box office, and The Predator director Shane Black knows this wholeheartedly. Indeed, it was not a question of money for him but of artistic vision. He believes people won’t want a Predator film that is made for kids.
After the success of Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool, the way fans view R-rated movies has tremendously changed over the years. Massive titles such as Todd Phillip’s Joker and Chad Stahelski’s John Wick have proven commercially successful despite their ratings.
The Predator Director Made Sure The Film Got an R-Rating
Shane Black, who also directed Marvel Studios’ Iron Man 3, confirmed via Twitter that The Predator (2018) has an R-rating. He said: “And, just to be clear… PG-13 is for pu**ies. Spines bleed… a lot.”
The director also mentioned how Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool opened the doors for R-rated films via his interview with Screen Rant:
“Before Deadpool, everyone was saying exactly the opposite. It’s only been recently that this sort of thing has become more palatable to the decision-makers.”
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When 20th Century Fox approached Black for a new Predator film after the success of Iron Man 3, he made sure he would retain the graphic violence in the next installment:
“I made it a condition of directing The Predator that it has to be the same rating as the first one, which was R. We probably could have gotten more money to do it as PG-13. But I actually think that although that seems like good logic, you’re shooting yourself in the foot. I don’t think the fans want a PG-13 Predator.”
Despite being marketed as a hard-R movie, 20th Century Fox still released a softer version in some countries where profanities were changed into less obscene words and the middle finger gesture was blurred out. Some scenes also had CGI blood for the purpose of easily omitting this element in international releases.
Shane Black Gets Transparent About The Reshoots In The Predator
The Predator is famously known for its extensive reshoots, and Black’s original rough cut was too dark so they had to do over the third act. Another reason why the director’s original version failed the test screenings was because of its unfinished effects.
Black spoke with Collider and explained the revisions he made to the movie:
“If you want to do all of this stuff with this much money, you probably need to shoot during the day because during the night would be prohibitive. To our chagrin, and it’s on me, when we saw the footage during the day, the climax of the movie, it doesn’t look right.”
He mentioned that the scenes did not look scary at all in the daytime so he decided to take “everything out of day and put it into darkness.” Still, revisions followed one after the other, and that was the reason why the film was pushed beyond its initial release date and was also delayed for its rescheduled release timeframe.
The Predator is available to watch on Prime Video.
