Predator (franchise)

A spacecraft flies near Earth and releases an object which enters the atmosphere. Some time later, in a Central American jungle,[notes 1] Army Special Operations and Vietnam Veteran Major Alan "Dutch" Schaefer[notes 2] and his elite rescue team — Mac, Billy, Blain, Poncho, and Hawkins — are tasked by Dutch's former commanding officer, General Philips, with rescuing a foreign official and his aide held hostage by insurgents. CIA agent Dillon, a former commando and an old friend of Dutch from Vietnam War, is assigned to supervise the team over Dutch's objections.

The team discovers the wreckage of a helicopter and three skinned corpses, identified by Dutch as Green Berets out of Fort Bragg that he knew personally. Dutch's team reaches the insurgent camp and kills the insurgents, including a Soviet intelligence officer searching through valuable documents. Confronted by Dutch, Dillon admits the mission was a setup to retrieve intelligence from captured operatives and that the dead military unit disappeared weeks earlier in a failed rescue.

After capturing Anna, a guerrilla, the team proceeds to its extraction point, unaware that it is being tracked with thermal imaging by an unseen observer. Anna escapes and is chased by Hawkins, but they are ambushed by the creature. It spares Anna but kills Hawkins and drags his body away. Dutch organizes a search for Hawkins' body, during which Blain is killed by the creature's plasma weapon. Enraged, Mac initiates a firefight in which the creature is wounded, revealing luminescent green blood. The unit regroups and realizes that something in the jungle is stalking them. Dillon believes more guerrillas are responsible, but Billy is adamant that the perpetrator is not human, an assertion that is met with skepticism. The team makes camp for the night, setting traps in all directions.

That night the traps are set off, and Mac kills a wild pig, mistaking it for the creature. In the confusion, the creature steals Blain's body and Dutch realizes that their enemy uses the trees to travel, stalking them like a predator. A second attempt to capture the creature using traditional trapping techniques such as a net and pitfall actually succeeds but it escapes leaving Poncho injured. Mac and Dillon pursue the alien, but it outmaneuvers and kills them. The creature catches up with the others, killing Billy and Poncho and wounding Dutch. Realizing the creature does not target unarmed prey because there is "no sport" in it, Dutch sends Anna to the helicopter unarmed. The creature pursues Dutch into a river and its cloaking device malfunctions. The creature, now visible, goes within a few feet of a mud-covered Dutch. His thermal signature reduced, Dutch remains unseen by the creature and it moves on. Dutch realizes he can use mud as camouflage.

While the creature collects trophies from the bodies, Dutch crafts traps and weapons and lures the creature out with a war cry and fire. Dutch disables the creature's cloaking device and inflicts minor injuries but falls into a river, losing his mud cover, and is pinned by the creature. Acknowledging Dutch as a worthy foe and wishing to fight him in equal terms because of the policies of his civilization, the creature discards its mask and plasma caster and engages him in hand-to-hand combat. Dutch is almost beaten, but manages to crush the creature under a trap's counterweight. As the creature lies dying, it activates a self-destruct device while laughing maniacally in Billy's voice. Dutch takes cover just before the device explodes. He is picked up by Philips and Anna in the helicopter.

In the record hot summer of 1997, a different Predator arrives in Los Angeles and hunts violent gang members, drawing the attention of the local police force and specifically Lieutenant Harrigan, who pursues the creature as it rampages throughout the city. The creature itself is in turn being hunted by the secretive government task-force OWLF, led by CIA agent Peter Keyes, which wishes to capture it for study.

A group of notorious mercenaries and murderers find themselves kidnapped and transported to an alien game preserve jungle planet, where they have to learn to work together in order to fight off a band of Super Predators and other alien creatures stalking them and find a way off this world.

Following the crash of a Predator spaceship on Earth, U.S. Army Ranger Quinn McKenna and a team of PTSD-afflicted soldiers must band together to take down a pair of Predators, including a new genetically enhanced Predator, and prevent an invasion of the planet.

Producer John Davis said that The Predator would set up two sequels that he hoped Shane Black would return to direct. Concerning this, Black stated that "I would love to say we've been planning a trilogy, but I take one day at a time, in motion-picture terms that's one movie at a time."[16] With the sale of 21st Century Fox's assets, including 20th Century Fox studios, to The Walt Disney Company the future of the series was called into question, though Bob Iger confirmed that certain properties would remain R-rated.[17]

In December 2019, Dan Trachtenberg was announced to be developing a film under the working title of Skulls, with a script from Patrick Aison, set during the American Civil War and following "a Comanche woman who goes against gender norms and traditions to become a warrior".[18] In November 2020, it was revealed that the project will actually be a fifth film in the Predator franchise. Trachtenberg indicated that he had been working on the film since 2016, while the original intention was to market the project without any references to Predator.[19] The Walt Disney Company will produce the project through their 20th Century Studios banner.[20]

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^(E) indicates figures based on available information.

Note that the figures in this table are not inflation adjusted

Several novelizations based upon the movies have been released.

• Predator by Paul Monette, Jove Books, June 1, 1987, ISBN 0-515-09002-6
• Predator 2 by Simon Hawke, Jove Books, December 1990, ISBN 0-515-10578-3
• The Predator: Hunters and Hunted by James A. Moore, Titan Books, July 31, 2018 ISBN 978-1785658051
• The Predator by Christopher Golden & Mark Morris, Titan Books, September 2018, ISBN 978-1785658051

• Predator: Concrete Jungle by Nathan Archer
• Predator: Cold War by Nathan Archer
• Predator: Big Game by Sandy Schofield
• Predator: Forever Midnight by John Shirley
• Predator: Flesh and Blood by Michael Jan Friedman
• Predator: Turnabout by Steve Perry
• Predator: South China Sea by Jeff VanderMeer
• Predator: Prey to the Heavens by John Arcudi and Javier Saltares
• The Predator: Hunters and Hunted by James A. Moore
• Predator: Stalking Shadows by James A. Moore

Dark Horse Comics published various lines based on the franchise. The Fire and Stone (2014–2015) and Life and Death (2016–2017) series further explored what happened in the Alien, Predator, Alien vs. Predator, and Prometheus universe following the events of the 2012 film Prometheus. In July 2020, Marvel Comics announced that it had acquired the comic book rights to the Predator franchise, in addition to the rights to the Alien and Alien vs. Predator franchises.[47]

Other books expanding this fictional universe has been released through the years, and also such that depict the background to the films, including works by special effects company Amalgamated Dynamics Incorporated (ADI) which has worked with the Alien, Predator and Alien vs. Predator films.

• Predator The Official Movie Special (2018)
• The Predator: The Art and Making of the Film (2018)

• Predator (1987)
• Predator 2 (1990)
• Predator 2 (1992)
• Predator: Concrete Jungle (2005)
• Predator: Hunting Grounds (2020)

• The Predator also was a downloadable character in Mortal Kombat X (2015).[48]
• The Predator is an unlockable outfit and hostile NPC in Fortnite Battle Royale Chapter 2 Season 5. [49]
• The Predator is a free challenging boss featured in Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

The Predators have appeared in two virtual pinball tables. The first one is a pinball adaptation of the first two Predator films, one of four pinball tables in the 1999 computer game Sci-Fi Pinball, with the other three tables being based on Aliens, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Fly, three other Fox horror films.[50] The second one is a loose pinball adaptation of Alien vs. Predator, developed by Zen Studios and available as an add-on pack for Zen Pinball 2, Pinball FX 2 and Pinball FX 3 on April 26, 2016.[51] Based on the premise and setting (though not the plot) of that film, this table is played entirely from the perspective of a Predator ascending the ranks to become a seasoned warrior and Alien hunter,[52] with two of the film's human leads being the table's announcers.

In the early 2010s, pinball manufacturer SKIT-B attempted to create an unauthorized physical pinball adaptation of the Predator franchise, without securing licensing rights from franchise owner 20th Century Fox. After suffering from legal problems, the pinball table was cancelled on March 24, 2015,[53] and thus, only an few prototypes of the pinball table exists to this day.

• Legendary Encounters: A Predator Deck Building Game (2015)[54]