1987 was a huge year for Shane Black. At the age of twenty-five, the screenwriter had three films released that year: LETHAL WEAPON, which was the first script he had ever sold, THE MONSTER SQUAD, which he co-wrote with his friend/the film's director Fred Dekker, and PREDATOR, which he also had an acting role in – director John McTiernan's way of making sure that Black would be on set in the jungles of Mexico to handle uncredited rewrites during filming.
Nearly thirty years have passed since his previous dealings with (and death at the hands of) the eponymous Predator, during which time he has given us such films as THE LAST BOY SCOUT, THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT, KISS KISS BANG BANG, and IRON MAN 3, and now Black is making a return to the PREDATOR franchise. In June of 2014, Black signed on to direct an "inventive sequel" that will delve further into the Predator mythology.
The script Black has been crafting with his MONSTER SQUAD co-writer Dekker has been praised by producer John Davis as being "fresh", "genius", and "entertaining"… and the script is now complete. Just a few hours ago, Dekker took to his Facebook page to share the news that the screenplay has been turned in to 20th Century Fox.
The idea of a PREDATOR film from the team of Black and Dekker is incredibly exciting to me. Here's hoping that the movie will be on the fast track from this point on. A 2017 release coinciding with the thirtieth anniversary of the first film would be perfect.