Predators footage debuts

You could argue all day whether another Predator movie is a decent idea or not. Yes, the first one had a winningly simple action movie premise and a nattily designed beastie. Equally, the Danny Glover-starring sequel was every bit as awful as the current Orange cinema ad featuring Detective Murtaugh (change it Orange, change it now). So with that chequered cinematic past, how is Predators looking?

Those currently partaking in the bonhomie of Austin's South by Southwest festival have a better idea than most, with the creative team behind the new movie (writer/producer Robert Rodriguez, director Nimród Antal, and special effects man Greg Nicotero, who worked on the 1987 original) having dropped into town on Friday, in order to show off a trailer, poster, some concept art, and to shoot the breeze a bit too.

Now those who have to trundle off to work and suchlike - as opposed to spending the week swanning round SXSW eating steak for breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner and tea - will not get the chance to see the Predators trailer till 18 March (it will be going out attached to Repo Men, which stars Predators actress Alice Braga). However, a promo clip has been posted on the movie's official website, which you can check out below.

Not much more than an appetite-whetter for the trailer really (which is a bit like having an hors d'oeuvre ahead of a breadstick), but it does give the most rudimentary of impressions of what Predators is all about. Rodriguez and Antal are indulging in a bit of selective amnesia, positioning their film as a sequel to the Arnie-starrer, and pretending that the Glover number two, plus the pair of Alien Versus spin-offs never happened. The essential premise is that a selection of the meanest, baddest human killing machines (lead Adrien Brody, Braga, Laurence Fishburne, Danny Trejo, Topher Grace) are spirited off to a Predator planet, where they are the easy meat on which the alien hunters choose to hone their tracking 'n' butchering skills.

Interesting to see Rodriguez, rather than director Antal, at the front and centre of the movie's publicity, with this seeming to reflect the current craze for installing a fan-friendly figure as godfather on a project (we've had Jackson on District 9, we're getting Nolan on Superman, and there were those Cameron-telling-Marc-Webb-how-to-shoot-Spider-Man rumours), which does much to bolster the pre-release buzz - even if they can't actually be arsed to direct the film themselves.

Bloody Disgusting and Shock Till You Drop both deliver good coverage of the SXSW event, with some interesting little titbits having apparently come tumbling from the mouth of R-Rod (Antal and Nicotero? Not so much, it would seem). The From Dusk Till Dawn man had been engaged to write a new Predator movie in the mid-90s, when the Austrian cigar store Indian looked set to return to the series. His script sat on the shelf for a decade, till Fox dusted it down and engaged Rodriguez to shepherd the production onto the big screen. Michael Finch and Alex Litvak have since rewritten, and after Britain's very own Neil Marshall flirted with the project, Antal was installed as director.

Three more things to note about Predators:

1) The Predators won't be CGI

2) The movie will be R-rated

3) The movie will be not be in 3D. This is a topic Rodriguez knows a bit about, having used the format for Spy Kids: Game Over way back in 2003, when the industry gave about as much of a stuff about 3D as Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia give about appropriate physical boundaries in sibling relationships. However Predators was not photographed in three dimensions and Rodriguez said he doesn't think it will be converted, as that process does not yield results as impressive as those delivered by shooting with 3D cameras – an assessment that many Alice in Wonderland watchers will agree with, and should have Clash of the Titans shaking in its opportunistic gladiator sandals.