Who is looking forward to the new Robert Rodriguez film? Hopefully we'll finally see a multitude of Preds at long last. Word has it the story will take place on Pred homeworld. Maybe we can dispense at last with the single-Pred-on-planet-X theme. Or Preds-who-get-killed-too-easily-and-one-Pred-survives concept. My hope is that Predators will be like Aliens, meaning MANY MANY Predators.
How producers and directors said they couldn't find enough tall guys to fill out the Pred suits is beyond me. With the technology available now it seems absurd. Expensive, yes, to produce multiple suits, and time consuming to have a lead or two tall suit actors to change between them all, and production costs and such, but it can be done.
It was done easily enough in Star Wars for the Wookies (there's a lame concept, AVW), and LOTR had no issues with scaling characters. Hell, I've met teenagers who made me feel like a runt Pred and I'm 6'2 ish ! These guys were near 7 ft and hadda be over that, at least one. So the tall genetics exist in plenty now.
Add replicating with CG and mocap, and voila! A Pred army, or at least a badass squad of 20 in rip-roaring green-blooded action!
Why studios won't risk money I don't know. Maybe they do them low-ish budget to make a profit then when the fans don't show up in droves they say it's not cost effective to make the films because of low returns? How about they finally deliver the ultimate badass storyline, have a squad of Preds on the hunt (something big), and stop the formulaic crapfests?
A lot of folks didn't like Anderson's films, I groaned at parts but at least I was able to see the Pred on the big screen with an Alien Queen, so for that at least we can thank Anderson for getting the interest from the studio backers.
Now all we can hope for is the studios loosening the purse-strings and paying attention to some fansites for storylines and Yautja conceptual work. If I were to make a Pred film I'd be searching sites for fans who delivered the goods and hire them for concept artists and writers. Pred fans know what they wanna see and would do with a budget. I'm sure there is a wealtgh of talent untapped.
Bottom line is quit looking at the bottom line, and make something intense, and the fans will line up and the initial investment will be well worth the back end. And studios, we know what Preds look like. We don't need some half-baked 'suspense' build up to reveal the critter. It could only work in the first one. It worked well, and we fell in love with the gooey slimy, freak with mandibles. Anderson astounded me when he based AVP on Alien and Predator (one) when he said he'd written the script in a suspensful way for the big reveal as in Alien and Predator. That worked in the 70s and 80s. Not now.
Now all it does is comes off like a Todd Mcfarlanefest with the constant retelling of Spawn's origins, and the realization that they have nothing new to say.
I wanna see an Yautja ship with all the levels of society, even the slums of the bowels where the Scapegoats scrounge. That would be a great scene, a Pred ship docking onto a 'city' ship, the Preds disembarking and one in a bad mood after a bad hunt kicking the crap outta a scapegoat Yautja. Quick but funny and would give fans an in-joke. We're smart enough to handle sub titles so the Preds could 'talk' to give some insight into the culture. Worked in LOTR just fine.
Even better, once a good script revitalises the franchise, how about a storyline incorporating a Queen Alien hunt, or a conflict AWAY from humans? Drop the human ego and write a real Aliens V Predators with no hairless monkeys with popguns (Stingers, in Predspeak)? Perhaps a plot with Yautja on a hunt for Bad Bloods? Lotsa things out there if the studio execs look.