Arnold Schwarzenegger seems to have crushed the hopes of many a PREDATOR fan in a new interview with Yahoo! Movies. Ever since it was announced that Shane Black, who co-starred with Schwarzenegger in the first PREDATOR, would be directing "an inventive sequel" called THE PREDATOR, fans have been hoping that Black would get Schwarzenegger into the film in some way, even if it was just a cameo. There seemed to be a chance that it could happen – Black said that a Schwarzenegger appearance was "something we're looking into", and Schwarzenegger said he was going to have lunch with Black to discuss the possibility.
With THE PREDATOR deep into production at this point, there had been no word on how things had turned out with Schwarzenegger, although the film's star Boyd Holbrook cast doubt on a cameo, saying it would be "a gimmick".
Now this new interview with Schwarzenegger gives us a clear answer regarding his involvement with THE PREDATOR, and it's not a positive one:
They asked me, and I read it, and I didn’t like it — whatever they offered. So I’m not going to do that, no. Except if there’s a chance that they rewrite it, or make it a more significant role. But the way it is now, no, I won’t do that."
A Schwarzenegger cameo would have been fun, but my interest in THE PREDATOR doesn't depend on it one way or the other. There is so much that can be done with the skull-collecting aliens, I don't really need to see them cross paths with the same humans on multiple occasions. In fact, there was a Schwarzenegger cameo written for PREDATORS that I'm really glad didn't happen. As the man says, "I read it, and I didn't like it."
Schwarzenegger won't be in THE PREDATOR, but Boyd Holbrook, Jacob Tremblay, Yvonne Strahovski, Keegan-Michael Key, Olivia Munn, Trevante Rhodes, Thomas Jane, Alfie Allen, Augusto Aguilera, Sterling K. Brown, Jake Busey, and Edward James Olmos are.
Written by Black and his THE MONSTER SQUAD collaborator Fred Dekker, THE PREDATOR is scheduled for release on February 9, 2018.