10 Things You Didn’t Know About Predator

On June 12th, 1987 the action gods smiled upon the earth and gave to us Arnold Schwarzenegger in Predator.

Now I have seen Predator countless times and I know a lot of things about Predator. I know it is an action movie that doesn’t waste any time with a romantic subplot. I know it is an action movie that didn’t torture us with any child actors. I know Predator is the purest and quite possibly the greatest action movie I have ever seen.

But recently I went down memory lane with director John McTiernan and learned some things I didn’t know about Predator. McTiernan provided the audio commentary on what was his first studio film and a film he likens to the classic King Kong. And now after reliving the movie for the first time with McTiernan’s commentary, I present to you…

10 Things You Didn’t Know About Predator

1. It was Director John McTiernan that pushed heavily for Carl Weathers to get the role of Dillon in Predator. He wanted an actor who was athletic and physically imposing, but also a seasoned actor who Arnold could play off of. The Dillon character as originally written as a straight up “bad guy”. But McTiernan changed the character to a “good guy” with a different agenda than Dutch and his team.

2. There were a few color challenges on the set. The original concept was that the Predator’s blood would be orange, but after trying the orange blood and it not working out, the decision was made to go with the glowing green blood, which is in fact the liquid found inside glow sticks… McTiernan and the rest of the production team found out the hard way that the leaves on the trees in Puerto Vallarta fall off and turn brown. This is not a good thing when one is trying to make a movie set in the lush green jungle. The production would eventually be moved to Palenque where the foliage was much more cooperative and green.

3. John McTiernan had the military advisor that was on set put the actors through a mini boot camp and take them out on 4 hour hikes through the hills to build up their camaraderie and give them some experience working with one another before shooting began.

4. A bodyguard was on set and assigned to Sonny Landham. This bodyguard was not there to protect Sonny. This bodyguard was there to protect other people from Sonny.

5. The scorpion that was killed in the movie was a real scorpion, the wild boar that was killed was not a real wild boar.

6. It took Kevin Peter Hall 4 to 5 hours to get in and out of the Predator suit. Kevin Peter Hall appears, out of the complex Predator suit, as the helicopter pilot at the end of the film.

7. The shoot was a physically rough one on McTiernan. Not only did he lose 25 lbs.  because he avoided eating a lot of the local Mexican cuisine, he also fell out of a tree and broke his wrist.

8. Arnold’s character Dutch resembled the comic book character Sgt. Rock. As a wink and a nod to this resemblance, Shane Black’s character Hawkins is seen reading a Sgt. Rock comic book during the end credits.

9. The giant tree at the end of the movie when Dutch goes one on one with the Predator was a man mad tree. The tree was actually made out of concrete.

10. Composer Alan Silvestri was inspired by Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man”. The music we hear when Mac (Bill Duke) is paying tribute to his fallen comrade Blain (Jesse Ventura) is often referred to as “Fanfare for the Common Mercenary” because of the obvious Copland inspiration.