Several guys mill around in the corner of a small, neon-green draped sound stage sipping coffee, chatting. Camera flashes burst behind them. No one cares. Daily business. A young, hipster photog in a denim biker’s jacket worms about them, crouching, standing, leaning, snapping pictures. “Oh yeah. Very muscular,” he shouts. “More. Give me more! Yes. Very. Good. Give me another pose!”
Your inner 12-year-old squeals like a squirrel on a helium and Pixy Stix bender. After all, that’s a seven-foot Predator crab-legging its arms like a bodybuilder in the corner. And for some reason it’s doing glamor shots without a fur boa.
You’re the sort of guy who watched Predator (and even Predator 2) weekly when you were a kid. You owned the comic books. The novels. The toys. You even tried to fabricate the iconic helmet out of cardboard (which you abandoned after accidentally gluing a piece to your family dog’s snout). That’s what boys did back in the ’90s. And if you knew back then that one day you’d visit the set of the franchise’s reboot, titled Predators, well, actually you wouldn’t have ended up visiting the set because the awesomeness of such news would have detonated your brain and killed you on the spot.
That was years ago. You still dig the movies, but the fascination withered sometime around the point you stumbled upon Lord of the Rings — or girls — whichever came first. Yet, you can’t help it. From across the stage you gawk like a slacked-jawed yokel at the photo-whoring Predator while standing near Gregory Nicotero, a creature-effects veteran from John McTiernan’s Predator and one of Hollywood’s go-to guys when you want gruesome beasties in your flick.
“There are two species of Predators in the movie,” Nicotero says. “We have our Classic Predator we re-created from the original film and then we have our Super Predators.”
Wait. Didn’t we get some “super” Predators in those hilarious Alien Vs. Predator flicks? Those things looked like beefy, crossed-eye mutants nursed on steroids and protein bars since birth. Or perhaps chalk that up to crappy design. But it doesn’t matter.
Nicotero didn’t reference any of the Predator movies following the first film. Yet, don’t expect another round of WWE wrestling Super Predators. They are taller, leaner, and designed under the notion that the Super Predators are to the iPod as the original creature’s are to cassette tapes. “We wanted to give the idea they are fast and elegant and that they are efficient,” says Nicotero. “The exact opposite of Mickey Rourke.”
The film reveals three Super Predators: the Falconer who controls a bio-mechanical bird to seek out the prey; the gnarly Black Predator (or Mr. Black as the crew calls it) who leads the pack; and the Dog Handler, who’s currently striking modeling poses in the corner and owns a hound that’s more like a boar-hyena-moose-panther than a beagle.
The photo session ends and one of the guys loitering around escorts the Predator over to you. The blood-splattered helmet with ivory tusks affixed to the jaw comes off, but not in a gloriously methodically, timed-to-beat-the-shit-out-of-Arnold-Schwarzenegger manner. No, no, no. Someone simply yanks it off of the Velcro anchors and that’s that. Underneath lies the sweaty face of Carey Jones, a make-up effects guy for Nicotero’s company lassoed into playing a Predator due to his athletic build and 6′ 7″ height, which is elevated another three inches when suited up.
Without the helmet, the edge of the creature’s chin and skull encircle Jones’ face like a spongy pie crust. The chin constantly slips up around his mouth forcing Jones to speak like a man tiptoeing in a swimming pool with his head cocked-back just above the water line.
Here it is. A real deal Predator costume up close and personal and good mama… does it look fake. Foam latex forms every piece of the suit, even the armor and dreadlocks. Only the wristband seems to contain an element of non-foam since a red light randomly flashes from it. It’s all painted to look hard, but it really doesn’t. All in all, you’d think it was a rich nerd’s expensive comic book convention outfit.
Yet, no worries. It should look solid on camera. It’s the same reason you don’t watch hi-def television 5 inches from the screen. Up close, you see the pixel structures. But five feet away it appears as if Brian Williams is sitting in your living room dropping the ills of the planet to you in-person.
Jones puts up with you poking his alien armor a few times while Nicotero points out different features of the suit. Then somebody hands Jones a pair of New Balance shoes and like some bizarro episode of Mr. Rogers showing in hell the Predator replaces his alien feet with the tennis shoes, takes a cup of coffee offered to him, and saunters out towards the exit.
Your inner 12-year-old suddenly goes quiet.
Fox Studios and Troublemaker Studios graciously allowed RopeofSilicon to visit the set of Predators in Austin, Texas, last winter. Stay tuned throughout the week for our 4-part series. Look for tomorrow’s piece on the specter of Arnold Schwarzenegger and the man taking his place.
