The Predator hates our Comic-Con coverage bad, which is how you know he’s evil. Photo : Fox

The 2018 Comic-Con officially began this morning, and it’s venerable, enormous Hall H opened its doors to showcase The Predator. Shane Black. Black, best known for writing Lethal Weapon and directing Iron Man 3, was one of the original writers on the first Predator film; now he’s back directing its latest installment and he popped by Comic-Con to debut a few new scenes.


But before that, Black set up the world of this new movie: In this world, the first two Predator films happened, which means Predators have been defeated by humans twice, and back on the Predator homeworld, they are not happy about it. This is why the Predators come back to Earth. “To punch back,” according to Black.

We saw a bit of that in a scene featuring characters played by Boyd Holbrook, Jacob Tremblay, and Olivia Munn, all hunted by a Predator. He finds them, shoves Munn, grabs Holbrook and throws him on a wall. Just then, a huge hand punches through the wall and grabs the Predator. He gets thrown outside and then boom—there’s a much larger Predator, a “roided up” one, according to Black. He suggested that the Predators made this alteration to themselves on their home planet just to be sure they could defeat humans this time.


So the small Predator and large Predator face off, but it’s not much of a fight. The large Predator just tosses him around like it’s nothing. As this happens, all the humans escape on an RV and just watch in shock. “They’re hunting each other now?” Munn’s character asks. As they drive off, the large Predator smashes the small one on a car, rips off his mask, and crushes his skull with a punch. Then, in true Predator fashion, he rips his head off, spin included.

That scene, in particular, felt very Predator. The first scene shown at the panel, however, did not. It was in a hotel where Munn’s character is passed out on a bed, and wakes up to discover six soldiers (including Trevante Rhodes, Keegan-Michael Key, Thomas Jane, and Holbrook) in the room with her. Obviously, she’s scared, so she grabs a shotgun that’s conveniently laying on the floor and the soldiers get very excited, and bet on whether she would go for it or not. Munn then struggles with Holdbrook’s character over the shotgun and pulls the trigger, but it’s empty. As this is happening, there are a lot of weird jokes being tossed around, like from Thomas Jane’s character, who has Tourette’s and talks about he wants to eat her pussy, which is kept up as a bit that is sure to raise some eyebrows (at the very least) considering Munn is the only woman in the main cast. Finally, after much banter and ballyhoo, they all start talking about the Predator and realize that it may be hunting them because Holbrook’s character stole its gear.

The scene feels almost as alien as a Predator itself. How will it fit in with the rest of the film, which looks from the trailers, like a big, badass action movie? That seems to be the magic formula Black is going to with the film, but this scene felt contrary to it.

Unfortunately, this footage has not been released online yet, but here’s a new, intense poster they also released today.


Starring Olivia Munn, Sterling K. Brown, Boyd Holbrook, Jacob Tremblay, Trevante Rhodes, Keegan-Michael Key, Thomas Jane, and Alfie Allen, The Predator opens September 14.