Predator expanded the fame of action hero Arnold Schwarzenegger after Conan and Terminator in 1987. An entire film series was created from the commando squad, which encounters an alien hunter on its mission in the Latin American jungle. But would you have known that John McTiernan’s Predator originally the sequel to another Schwarzenegger film should be?
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Predator was now called The Phantom Commando 2
As early as 1985, a film sent Arnold Schwarzenegger to South America: as former elite soldier John Matrix, he appeared in Mark L. Lesters The Phantom Command (in the English original: Commando) free his kidnapped daughter and take on a ruthless dictator. The film grossed over $57 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo, and so the question of a sequel arose.
According to screenwriter Jeph Loeb, the opportunity to bring Schwarzenegger’s elite fighter back came in the form of the Predator script. A few months ago he revealed in an Allociné interview:
It wasn’t our idea, but I thought it was a good idea. The studio had received the script for Predator and they initially thought the best way to implement it was to turn it into Phantom Commando 2. […] Anyone who looks at The Phantom Commando and then Predator will notice that they are the same character, even though his name changes [John Matrix wird zu Dutch]. Even the camouflage outfit is the same. […] I still have a version of Predator that says The Phantom Commando 2. Why Predator wasn’t a sequel, but spawned several sequels itself
Why Predator wasn’t turned into a Phantom Commando sequel in the end is almost bizarre from today’s perspective. Especially when you consider that Arnold Schwarzenegger later successfully returned for numerous Terminator installments. Loeb explains:
Someone else [bei Fox] woke up and said, ‘No, we’re not going to do that.’ The reason they didn’t was because Back then, sequels usually only grossed half of what [was die ersten Teile gemacht hatten]. Only later were there productions like Star Wars and Terminator 2, which were more successful than the first film.
In the end, Predator didn’t become The Phantom Commando 2. Instead, the Predator gave birth toSuccess of $98 million has its own sci-fi franchise at the global box office, which exploited the idea of the alien hunter and now includes seven films. It starts at the end of this year in November Predator: Badlands the eighth entry in the cinema.
Even more sci-fi in the podcast: The 15 best series starts in January on Netflix, Amazon and Co.
Do you need more fresh streaming tips? We present the most exciting series in January, which start on Netflix, Amazon, Disney+ and Co., in the monthly overview:
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The 15 series highlights in January include, in addition to the tough western survival fight on Netflix and the return of one of the best sci-fi thrillers ever, the new mission of the Night Agent and a replacement for The Rookie on Amazon.
This article appeared in a similar form on our French sister site Allociné.