When it was first released in 1987, Predator didn’t make much of an impact with critics. Reviews and fans alike loved the action, but, at the time, many felt the plot left much to be desired. But 30 years later, the tide has turned, as many of those same critics now hold up the original Predator as a standard bearer among action films. That’s why we decided to put together these incredible Predator facts about the movie.
Here are 11 amazing things about Predator—a few of which may surprise you a bit.
11. Arnold was pumping iron during filming—a lot
Arnold Schwarzenegger is pretty jacked in Predator, and part of the reason he was so muscular was because he’d be working out on set while filming in the jungle. Schwarzenegger made sure the production had the proper equipment, no matter the expense. “Before we shot every day, Arnold and his trainer and all of the big boys, they got up an hour and a half before breakfast and trained,” actor Bill Duke told The Hollywood Reporter for its oral history of Predator on the 30th anniversary. “It was this gigantic gym that Arnold shipped to Mexico in these gigantic trucks so that the [hotel] ballroom, that was our gym. Arnold once knocked on my door at 5:30, woke me up. I started lifting with them and they all would start yelling at me to lift more weights and more reps.
10. The actual Predator suit was really tough to act in
The late Kevin Peter Hall, who played the Predator in the first two films of the series, had a tough time battling with Schwarzenegger during filming on Predator. On top of the fact that the suit was uncomfortable and heavy, Hall was unable to see out of the costume, meaning he had to learn the movements of not just his character, but anyone else in the scene he was acting with. Hall spoke about the experience in the article “Predator: The Man in the Suit,” with the sci-fi/fantasy magazine Cinefantastique. “When [Arnold’s] supposed to slap me around and stay far from my face, all of a sudden, whap! There is this hand with claws on it!” Hall said. “It wasn’t a movie, it was a survival story for all of us.”RELATED:
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9. Shane Black was killed first for a reason
Shane Black (pictured, far left) had a small role in the film as Hawkins, a commando in Major Alan “Dutch” Schaefer’s (Schwarzenegger) crew who gets killed very early on. It turns out producer John Davis, who is also producing the new sequel/reboot for Black, wanted Black’s writing skills more than his acting skills. Black had recently written Lethal Weapon, which turned out to be a huge success. Unfortunately for Black, he was more interested in acting in Predator. “I met Shane on that movie” Davis said to The Hollywood Reporter. “Shane was a really great writer and we wanted him to do a rewrite on the [Predator] script. So we put him in the movie, because he’s an actor. And we got him down there, and we asked him to do a rewrite, and he said he was an actor in the movie and not a writer. So he was the first person we killed. He got killed seven minutes into the movie.”
8. The cast dealt with hot temperatures and lots of sweat
Actor Bill Duke (above, pictured right), played Mac in the film, and he revealed what the cast dealt with temperature-wise while filming in the jungle. Namely: It was hot as hell. “We’re talking about hot heat — and humid heat. We’re not talking about 80°,” Duke told The Hollywood Reporter. “We’re talking about 90-something or more. We’re talking about having to wear this gear that is heavy itself, and then the guns and stuff, and mine was like a gun off a battleship machine gun. So you’re carrying your bodyweight, you have clothing on, and then you’re crawling through the jungle on your stomach and there are coral snakes and spiders and scorpions and a lot of different things.”
7. Production took a break so Arnold could get married
The crew was on location and shooting in Mexico for a few weeks in April 1986, but everyone took a break toward the end of the month so Arnold Schwarzenegger could get to his wedding to marry Maria Shriver, according to IMDB. Producer Joel Silver even chartered a jet to get him to Massachusetts for it.
6. Jean-Claude Van Damme was supposed to play the Predator
As described in the oral history of Predator by The Hollywood Reporter, there are some differing accounts of why JCVD was fired, but either way, he did not make it into the final cut. Whether it was the uncomfortable suit, his height, or the fact that Van Damme wanted the Predator to kickbox (“You gotta stop kickboxing! Look, the Predator is not a kickboxer,” Joel Silver, a producer on the film, said, according to Joel Hynek, visual effects supervisor), is still a bit of a mystery, but it likely was a combination of all these reasons. Van Damme would later work with his action film buddy Schwarzenegger in the Expendables series—playing a like these dominating dudes.
5. There were bugs everywhere
Filming in the jungles of Mexico helped give the film a realistic feel, but it wasn’t all scenic waterfalls and pretty landscapes. Actor Richard Chaves, who played Poncho in the film, recalled dealing with quite a few crawling critters during the course of filming. “A lot of it was raw jungle that we were running through when we were in the week rehearsal,” Chaves told The Hollywood Reporter. “And we took a break one day, and I checked the area out, you know, where I was gonna sit my butt down, and laid down, and next thing I know I am covered in red ants. I was bitten almost 100 times down both my arms, and went into a little bit of shock, was running through the jungle ripping my clothes off, butt naked. They had a water tank, and I went into the water tank and just doused myself.” Chaves had another awesome story, coming after Schwarzenegger returned from his wedding:RELATED:
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“The very first day [Arnold] got back was a 15-, almost 16-hour day and I was in the shower just filthy. And the phone rings and I said ‘Hello?’ and it’s a woman’s voice, and she goes, ‘Is this Richard?’ I said ‘Yes it’s Richard,’ and she goes ‘What are you doing?’ And I said, ‘I’m in the shower picking ticks off my balls!’ OK? And she started laughing. And I said ‘Who the hell is this?’ She goes, ‘Richard it’s Maria [Shriver, Schwarzenegger’s then-wife], and I’m just calling to invite you up to have dinner. I’m inviting everybody up to have dinner so you can meet me,’ and then she started laughing again.”
4. Carl Weathers would get in secret early-morning workouts
After his fantastic performance in the Rocky series as Apollo Creed eathers became the first choice of the producers to play Colonel George Dillon in Predator. While working with actors as big and muscular as Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura, Weathers wanted to make sure his physique could stack up. As he said in the 2001 short documentary on the film, If It Bleeds We Can Kill It: The Making of ‘Predator’, Weathers said that he acted as if his built physique came naturally to him—in actuality, he would wake up sometimes as early as 3 a.m. so he could work out without anyone seeing him.
3. The cast of the film had two future United States governors
This fact isn’t lost on any fans of the film, but it’s still pretty awesome: The actors who played Dutch and Blain ended up becoming governors in the United States. Schwarzenegger, of course, went on to become the governor of California, while Ventura, who played Blain Cooper, became the governor of Minnesota following his acting and wrestling career.
2. Arnold took a beating while making the film
Schwarzenegger has been known to do a lot of his own stunts for his films, but Predator took things to another level. “I took more abuse in Predator than I did in Conan the Barbarian,” said Schwarzenegger, according to an interview he did with the sci-fi/fantasy magazine Cinefantastique. “I fell down that waterfall and swam in this ice-cold water for days and for weeks was covered in mud. It was freezing in the Mexican jungle. They had these heat lamps on all the time, but they were no good. If you stayed in front of the lamps, the mud dried. Then, you had to take it off and put new mud on again. It was a no-win situation. The location was tough. Never on flat ground. Always on a hill. We stood all day long on a hill, one leg down, one leg up. It was terrible.”