WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Shane Black’s The Predator, in theaters now.
The original ending to Shane Black's The Predator was originally completely different than the version ultimately shown in the final film.
According to Scott Wampler from film news site Birth. Movies. Death., Black and co-writer Fred Dekker's original script for the sequel saw a former star return to the franchise immediately after the film's climactic battle with the ultimate Predator.
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As surviving characters Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook), son Rory (Jacob Tremblay), and Casey Brackett (Olivia Munn) recover from the final fight, a helicopter lands nearby with an older version of the original film's protagonist Dutch (Arnold Schwarzenegger) emerging to recruit them for future conflicts against the alien hunters.
As Schwarzenegger turned down the possibility of returning for the latest film feeling the appearance was too small a role, Black and Dekker rewrote the ending entirely into the version seen in the finished film.
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With the filmmakers planning for a new trilogy of Predator films, Schwarzenegger's character could still potentially return but the original ending offers a nice glimpse at what could have been.
Directed by Shane Black from a script he wrote with Fred Dekker, The Predator stars Boyd Holbrook, Trevante Rhodes, Jacob Tremblay, Keegan-Michael Key, Olivia Munn, Sterling K. Brown, Alfie Allen, Thomas Jane, Augusto Aguilera, Jake Busey, and Yvonne Strahovski. The film is out in theaters everywhere now.
(via Birth.Movies.Death.)