Original subtitles

After starring in the hit movie "Terminator..."

The reviews were out of this world.

It's the hit we were hoping for.

I'll be back.

...and then "Commando."

I can't hear you.

In the United States, it was a hit.

- Works everytime. - It was a huge hit

around the world.

Guess he enjoyed killing them too much.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was determined

to prove he was no one-trick pony.

So in 1986, the now A-list actor was on fire

and ready to push himself harder than ever.

In a new sci-fi action flick.

- "Predator." - But this movie

- would be a challenge. - It comes with the job.

- I can accept it. - From the first pages

- of the script. - We're getting

a little despondent about the whole thing.

To tussles with the Muscles from Brussels.

Claude Van Damme had no idea what he was in for.

Well, when they found it was gonna cover his face,

he's like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. What are you doing?"

-"Did nobody tell you?" - What in God's name?

No, no, no, you moron.

Gastroenteritis would strike in Mexico.

Arnold was laying in bed with Montezuma's Revenge.

We're in the middle of the jungle, the bugs are in charge.

And tensions boiled over

before a camera ever rolled.

You set us up!

We didn't get along with John.

It was like talking to somebody from Mars.

And when they finally did.

We almost blew up the set and killed everybody.

- From set shutdowns... - Joel went ballistic.

John went ballistic.

And they just wrapped it.

They put us all on planes and sent us home.

- ...and dangerous characters... - The studio didn't want

to hire Sonny because Sonny is insane.

We're all gonna die.

...to a monster so problematic,

it sent the production back to square one.

I will not have an asshole in a Godzilla suit

starring in this movie.

After Joel Silver's hit with "Commando,"

could "Predator" and the Schwarzenegger/Silver dream team

give audiences their wildest rides yet?

Or would the jungle chew them up?

Whoo! It's nice to get this off my chest. And cut.

In a decade full of action heroes,

by the mid 1980s, one man

stood head and shoulders above the rest.

I eat Green Berets for breakfast.

And not just in size.

Arnold Schwarzenegger's performance in "Commando"

now meant full houses.

Suddenly everyone woke up and went,

Arnold Schwarzenegger is an international movie star.

You're a funny guy Sully, I like you.

That's why I'm going to kill you last.

But the real bloodbath was happening

at Fox Studio

where fresh blood behind the scenes was about

- to change everything. - What the--?

Luckily, these two lifeguards, brothers Jim and John Thomas

had cooked up a killer idea

on a California beach in 1983.

An extraterrestrial hunter comes to this planet

just seeking the most dangerous game.

Man.

It had its roots going back to that film,

"The Most Dangerous Game."

I shall hunt you like a leopard.

And we thought introducing the extraterrestrial aspect

of it was something that was unique

that really hadn't been done before.

What the hell are you?

They had the idea.

But did they have the chops?

Jim and John had never written a screenplay, and--

It was the first time Jim and I had ever worked together.

But they had a hell of an office.

I was living at the beach at that time.

And we had a cable spool that we'd found in the alley

and rolled out there and buried it in the sand.

That became our workspace.

A month later, the script outline was ready

with the first scene of a predator going through a hit list.

All the dangerous species on earth.

Gorillas, grizzly bears, you know?

But the most dangerous prey of all was--

- Combat soldier. - He was a good soldier.

John and Jim had their alien villain.

But Hollywood had no interest in these no agent nobodies.

We tried to sell it.

I wrote about a hundred query letters.

To every production company in Hollywood.

Probably a hundred rejection letters.

We were getting a little despondent about the whole thing.

So the brothers went behind enemy lines

with the help of an industry insider.

A friend of Jim's, his girlfriend,

was a secretary at Fox who worked

for a production executive. It took her a couple of weeks

to finally give it to the guy

and he had just been fired actually.

The executive staff,

they pretty much fired everybody.

And Larry brought in his own team.

Larry Gordon is credited

with launching the buddy cop genre with movies

like "48 Hrs."

Luther, are you angry with me?

He and Barry Diller were brought in

to shake up Fox Studios.

Larry's specialty was action films.

So when he discovered John and Jim's script,

he thought it would be an excellent first production.

And green-lit it right away.

We couldn't believe it.

We said, you've gotta be kidding.

This is some sort of a Hollywood story.

I almost fell on the floor.

The brothers were also floored

when they were asked to stick around.

Their Hollywood dream was finally coming true.

They kept us on as writers,

which was the most important thing to us.

We got to stay with the project

'cause a lot of times the studios will buy a script

and that's the last you see of it, you're out.

And Larry Gordon knew just who to call,

his old buddy, Joel Silver

after turning "Commando" into a certified Fox hit.

- Well done. - Thank you.

Joel had the Midas touch.

Joel's style is very bombastic.

That's the way he does things.

I can't believe this macho bullshit.

Me personally, he just rubbed me the wrong way.

You don't argue with success.

Joel was one of the top action producers of all time.

His work speaks for itself.

And with that success came pull.

So when it came to Jim and John's choice for leading man--

We always envisioned Mel Gibson.

I'm the best chance you've got.

We had an everyman in mind.

But Joel Silver just happened

to be producing another film at the time.

You don't trust me at all, do you?

With Gibson unavailable,

he knew there was only one choice.

It's been a long time, General.

It was suddenly Joel and Arnold.

With an $18 million investment,

Fox was hoping Schwarzenegger would bring

some of that sweet box office profit home.

Don't deprive yourself of some pleasure.

We just, we didn't understand it.

It seemed so contrary to what we had envisioned

with an everyman.

It's not just a story, dammit,

it's the bloody story.

But Arnold had concerns of his own.

He read the script and he had,

he had concerns about, made to seem cartoonish

to the point like he was in "Commando."

I'd just like you to start up your unit again, John.

This was the last time.

Because after years

of playing men of few words.

- Sarah Conner? - If you read the script,

there's very little dialogue.

Arnold was determined

to prove he could handle more than one-liners.

Anna, this thing is hunting us.

Maria Shriver had a part in that

because she was really on Arnold's butt about that.

She didn't want him to do the film

because she thought he was gonna play the Predator.

She goes, "You're not doing any more monsters."

His fiance's concerns were valid.

Maria, she's bright and she can put Arnold in his spot.

But nothing a little sweat

and steam couldn't fix.

Our first meeting with Arnold was in a steam bath,

naked of course.

Nice night for a walk.

And while Jim and John couldn't have Mel Gibson

as their John Doe, maybe Arnold could be that character.

Well, if you'll play him like an everyman,

people will really believe that you're about to die

and when you rise up, that's a true hero.

And Arnold was, he's a very smart guy.

He got the implications of the story

and the character right off the bat.

And since Joel

was in the action comedy business,

the brothers made sure

to throw in a few one-liners for good measure.

- What do we gotta do? - The words were on the page,

but they weren't all landing, especially with Arnold.

Arnold had a very heavy Bavarian accent

and he didn't want to sound like that.

Let me be the judge of that.

We told him, we assured him

that we will tailor this to you.

We actually went over the lexicon of words that he was going

to say and how they sounded.

My men are not expendable.

He got on board right then.

It was a pretty productive steam session in that sauna.

But now Hunter was on the hunt for a director

and they'd find one as far from Hollywood as it gets.

Then they brought in a director from New Zealand,

Jeff Murphy, who had done "Utu" and "Quiet Earth."

He was very creative and he had a wild sense of humor.

"Ain't got time to bleed" actually was one of 'em.

- You're bleeding, man. - I ain't got time to bleed.

Joel Silver wanted the action on-screen

mixed with comedy.

- You got time to duck?♪ - The Jeff Murphy-isms

would stay in the script, but would Jeff Murphy?

Murphy, he didn't think Arnold was right for it.

Little bit of friction there between the two of them.

Jeff responded to some joke

with his New Zealand sense of humor.

Jeff Murphy came up with "Conan the Librarian"

and just, it rubbed Arnold the wrong way.

You killed my father, you killed my people!

He didn't think it was funny.

He said, "I won't work with the guy."

Arnold took offense

and Jeff Murphy took a 12 hour flight home to New Zealand.

And that was it, they fired him.

Grant me revenge.

A new movie with a working title "Hunter"

had an $18 million budget, a seasoned producer,

and Arnold Schwarzenegger,

but director Jeff Murphy didn't get the seal

of approval from the star.

So Fox brought in relative newcomer, John McTiernan.

Done two films, the second one was called "Nomads,"

which was very creative and done very well.

Nothing so dramatic, my work is cultural.

He wasn't a big-time director by any means at that point,

but his film was brilliant.

Did you ever have a dream and not know when it started?

Joel Silver said he was looking at this film

and he says, he saw it was John McTiernan did it.

He says, "I want him."

So Joel was the one that got John on the show.

After the powers approved,

"Hunter" could take aim.

- We're on our way to Mexico. - Which is where

principal photography would begin

once the mercenaries

who would fight alongside Arnold's character

Major Dutch were cast.

Blaine Cooper, 6'4", 250 pound killer.

That's Jesse Ventura.

In real life, I had six years military.

I am a highly trained Navy Seal.

And so what it was for me was simply going back to something

that I used to do for a living.

After coming home,

Jesse had become Jesse the Body,

the iconic WWF wrestler.

I looked as far from a military guy

- as you could. - At the "Hunter" audition,

it didn't take long to spot the perfect fit.

They handed me a script

and I remember I looked at it.

This stuff will make you a goddam sexual ty-ran-toe-sore-ass,

just like me.

I read that, and within an hour, they made me the offer.

Jesse understood theatrics.

Like I said, the man leaves his tracks.

You know, he comes from wrestling.

But he wouldn't be going back

after the WWF Co-founder Vince McMahon gave him

an ultimatum, the square circle or the silver screen.

So I quit wrestling and went off and did "Predator."

You lose it here,

you're in a world of hurt.

Actor Bill Duke would be

a two-for-one deal as well.

Bill Duke, he was a very fine director unto himself,

and so he really understood the process

and what was going on.

He just fit right in with that character,

and they just let him run with it.

In "Predator," I was Arnold Schwarzenegger's friend.

Something pretty big was gonna happen here.

And in "Commando," I was his enemy.

You scared, motherfucker?

Bill could play scared and scary.

Got that?

Even up against heavyweights like Carl Weathers,

fresh off Rocky IV.

Be back in a minute, alright?

Carl Weathers great athlete, intelligent man.

He loved looking you in the eyes, challenging you.

I woke up, why don't you?

Those are the kind of actors that are so inspiring

because they force you to bring your best game.

If you don't, you look like a clown with them in the scene.

He was there.

Those eyes disappeared.

But one actor/writer was required

to be a clown in the scene.

You know, I'd like a little pussy. She said, "Me too.

Mine's as big as a house."

Shane got that as a bone.

Joel threw it to him

'cause Shane wrote "Lethal Weapon."

The movie's class clown

was hired by Joel Silver,

partly because he could write.

- You got it, Major! - But did he know combat?

My big thing with Shane was I coached him

when he got the radio and he's telling Arnold,

we gotta get outta here.

I said, "Shane, take charge."

Air surveillance says we got guerrillas

all over the place.

Can't be more than one, two miles away.

This place is going down.

And Shane took direction great.

- How much time? - Half an hour, maybe less.

Well, just then he was being directed by a--

6'4", 250 pound killer.

But how would the smallest actor work

alongside his giant colleagues?

Richard Chaves was a veteran.

Just always had a sweetness to him.

Unlike Sonny Landham,

handpicked by Director McTiernan

to bring an edge.

Sonny had a drinking problem.

Sonny is insane.

The studio didn't want to hire Sonny

because they worked with him on "48 Hrs."

You got a big mouth, convict.

He was insane then.

He was great as that character.

He was a good actor that way.

Fox Studios were so worried,

they hired bodyguards

to keep an eye on Sonny 24 hours a day.

And it made him nuts

because he couldn't go fuck around,

being the asshole who he could be once he started drinking.

Everything was perfect

until someone noticed something was missing.

Oh, they wanted a female in there.

Decided that she'd be a guerrilla freedom fighter

and tough.

Somebody like Sigourney Weaver would play it.

Get away from her you bitch!

Elpidia Carrillo had impressed Hollywood

in "The Honorary Council" alongside Richard Gere.

And with James Woods in "Salvador."

It wasn't an easy role, great actress.

- Are you listening? - She was embraced.

But who would want to embrace the challenge

of creating the Predator?

I see it.

It was very important to the studio

what the creature should look like.

There's something out there waiting for us.

Boss Films' Steve Johnson

saw a golden opportunity for his portfolio.

Yeah, we were doing all the greatest hits of the 80s.

We started with "Ghostbusters."

I designed and sculpted and created Slimer.

- Disgusting blob -"Fright Night" after that.

- Well-- - We did "Poltergeist II."

So it was a fairly obvious choice for something

as crazy as the Predator costume.

But even Steve realized he'd bitten off

more than he could chew

when he saw what Joel Silver had come up with.

I was so excited about it.

I didn't know, however, at this point

that they had already taken it upon themselves

with their production design and Nikita,

to do several designs.

Until a very fateful meeting,

Joel Silver takes this binder of designs

and he drops it on the table.

And I immediately-- thinking, you've got to be kidding me.

All of these designs were undoable.

The head was extended mechanically.

We'd done that before,

I did it on "Fright Night."

Mechanically extended arms, no problem, we can do that.

The wild man in "Big Trouble in Little China." I had done that.

But then it had backward bent legs

and a reptilian backward bend.

Back in 1986, no one had figured out

how to make extensions

we could actually walk on like we do now.

It took one look at this.

You have to remember this was 19-- whatever it was.

1986.

I just immediately blurted out,

I can't do this, this isn't gonna work.

I'm afraid we all have our orders, Major.

Dead silence around the table.

Steve Johnson's brain

wrestling with how to make a predator costume in LA.

And I'm like, oh boy, making another suit.

But in April, 1986, principal photography

for what was still being called "Hunter" would begin--

- About here. - In Mexico.

Puerto Vallarta was picked by John Vallone.

That's production designer John Vallone.

And by Joel Silver to spend as much time as we were going

to spend in the jungle, working on this type of film

that we needed to be able to at night at least go back

to a decent hotel.

They had beautiful swimming pools.

And it was a beautiful hotel, the Camino Real.

But Jesse Ventura wouldn't spend his time

lounging by the pool.

...shoot something.

Who do you think taught these guys how to patrol?

I did.

I've had other military veterans come up to me

and here's what they've told me.

The patrolling in "Predator" is the most authentic.

I did butt heads with John McTiernan.

Son of a bitch is dug in like an Alabama tick.

John is doing this scene

and I said, you got these three guys so close together.

This is ridiculous.

You gotta have six to eight foot intervals

between everybody.

But John goes, "I'm not shooting a documentary."

It's pretty sophisticated for a bunch

of half-ass mountain boys.

And when it came to intensity,

no one set the tone like Arnold

or his trainer, Sven Thorsen.

Some damn fool accused you of being the best.

Arnold turned the conference rooms of the hotel into gyms.

So every morning, three or four hours

before he was supposed to be on set, Arnold led the team

and would run five miles or more

and then come back to the gym in the hotel

and work out for two hours.

But Arnold

wouldn't be leading the charge alone.

I was hired to be Arnold's trainer.

You think Arnold was big and tough.

He was bigger than Arnold.

And Arnold would put his arms up like this.

And Sven went behind him and lifted him in the air.

Duke was laughing,

but at the gym, Jesse wasn't.

I used to go down there at five minutes to 6:00

and I'd grab the water bottle

and I'd soak my T-shirt with it.

So it looked like I'd been there for an hour.

It's all bullshit. All of it.

And sure enough.

Arnold walked in and he turned to Sven.

He goes, "Sven, we better get up earlier."

Nobody could out-train Arnold.

But it kept getting earlier and earlier and earlier.

You did know when to quit, huh?

Until finally I called it off.

Something that was not being called off

was Arnold's wedding to Maria Shriver.

He actually left the set, went back to Hyannis Port,

got married to Maria Shriver.

Filming continued in his absence

and Jesse stepped up...

Payback time.

...to wield one of the most iconic weapons

in cinema history.

Joel said, "What's that?"

And he said, "Well, that's a helicopter minigun."

"Can one guy shoot it?"

They said, "No one ever has."

"Jesse Ventura can.

I'll take both of 'em."

The weapon itself weighed 75 pounds.

Which is why the M134

is usually mounted to a chopper.

It's electronic fired.

They would run battery cables up my pants leg,

bring it out, splice it into the weapon

and hide it from the camera.

Operated by equally stunned

cinematographer, Don McAlpine.

I've actually ended up hand-holding a camera.

I had two grips behind me and I'm thinking,

I hope there's not a live round in all this.

If there was, this wouldn't be Don.

Shortly afterwards, Don could have been done,

along with everyone else.

We almost blew up the set and killed everybody.

One side of the set, that's where all the explosives were.

And there was a fellow who was a fireman.

So he thought he'd go over there

and sit down and have a smoke.

And one of our stunt guys leaped through the air.

Just as this guy was taking a drag on the cigarette

and crushed the cigarette out.

I mean, if he would've dropped a hot ash in there,

it would've killed everybody.

It was wild and wooly down there on the set in Mexico.

But chaos wasn't just limited to the crew.

Sonny Landham was off his leash

and blowing up more than just the set.

On the weekends, there was a club that we went to

and we used to get in there and get so high and drunk.

I remember after having dinner with him one night,

seeing him walk down the hallway punching lights out.

- Oh! - And for some odd reason,

he took a liking to me

and he decided that we were gonna be buddies.

So every night he would find me and we would get into fights

after we were drunk.

Once the honeymoon was over,

Arnold returned only to end up back in bed.

The water was so contaminated, drink the water

and you got sick.

Arnold was laying in bed with Montezuma's Revenge

or whatever for a day or two.

Arnold had a sensitive stomach,

but not Jesse.

Everybody out on the set got sick except Jesse Ventura.

Well, maybe it was because Jesse was a--

6'4", 250 pound killer.

While Arnold was sick in bed,

Jesse would get a golden opportunity.

His famous line.

The I ain't got time to bleed scene

had been cut out of the script.

Or had it?

And Richard and I were brokenhearted

because we were the only two legitimate veterans

who were part of the cast.

But the fickle finger of fate stepped in.

They said, Arnold's sick, we need to shoot something.

I said, I'll be out there right now.

I'm on my way.

Richard did the same thing.

We went out there, we shot the scene

and I knew it was gonna end up in the film.

Because of the famously stoic

director's reaction.

If that scene could make John McTiernan laugh,

it was gonna make the crowd howl.

But when it came to the Predator himself,

no one was cracking jokes.

We never had the creature for a predator

before we began. In comes a big box

that looks like a coffin.

The next day the studio saw the result

and they rang up Joel

and said, it looks like a guy in a rat suit.

Holy mother of God.

Principal filming in Mexico on the film

known as "Hunter" was pushing ahead.

However, Arnold had only a few weeks left on location

before heading back to start his next feature, "Running Man."

But the hunter himself had yet to arrive.

We didn't have a creature.

We had about a quarter of the film to finish.

You don't ever want to have

one of your key elements unknown until the last minute.

The clock was ticking

and the director expected great things.

John's like, "You'll make it work."

This was John McTiernan's second film.

And perhaps unwisely,

producer Joel Silver tried

to help him by giving responsibility for the creature

to the production designer.

He assigned it to John Vallone.

John Vallone was responsible for developing

and having the creature built.

While they waited,

the crew concentrated on figuring out

the iconic camouflage shots.

You know, the effect where he's kind of invisible.

Not a fucking trace, no blood, no bodies, we have nothing.

Before we finished our real suit,

we had to make a red outline suit.

And the reason for red is it's the only color

that's not in the jungle.

Making the invisible Predator was horrendous.

In those days, you have to do everything on film

and optical printers

and things were just exponentially more difficult.

You sometimes would take 15 passes on one shot

to get all the information you needed

in all the different ways you needed it.

And who was in the red suit?

Not Santa Claus.

Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Because before he was punching nuts

and taking names, Jean-Claude had high hopes

for a career in Hollywood.

What a pain in the butt he was.

But as it turns out,

the jungle would kick back.

They would always cut the face out so that he can breathe

and he can see and they can talk to him.

But when they finally was gonna cover his face,

he's like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. What are you doing?

You can't cover my face."

"Did nobody tell you?"

He didn't realize nobody was ever gonna see his face.

And the only way they'd know he'd ever done it

was be in the titles at the end of the film.

He goes, "I hate this head, I hate it.

I just want to kick, kick, kick it."

A hostile actor anonymously encased in rubber.

Claude Van Damme had no idea what he was in for.

He was nonetheless excited

to see the Predator's suit

when it finally arrived from Boss Studios in LA.

And it was in the parking lot of the hotel.

And we all gathered around it.

Everybody peering in there, nobody knew what to say.

- And I said-- - It looked like

a big rubber chicken.

He's supposed to be running around the jungle

killing mercenaries.

And in that outfit, he couldn't even

crawl on his hands and knees.

And that's when Jean-Claude

really felt the heat.

Only in the hottest years, this happens.

Dressed in that costume, he passed out three times.

Joel goes over to him and he says, "Listen, man,

I know it's hot but you're passing out."

You're ghosting us, mother fucker.

"And every minute you pass out is costing me money."

I don't care who you are back in the world.

"You pass out again, you're fired."

The heat of the Mexican jungle

was taking its toll on everyone.

It was wild and woolly down there on the set in Mexico.

They had a Mexican crew for me.

One of the few scenes with a lighting rig was this one

that launched a thousand memes.

You son of a bitch.

There were all these wires going around with bulbs in.

I said, "Look, everything will just blow up."

However, those instructions

were lost in translation.

And so we started shooting

and sure enough, within about an hour...

Something like this happened.

...these bulbs started exploding.

Problems with heat just kept mounting up.

Even the tech wasn't immune.

The heat vision is how the Predator saw.

Tested it in LA, just the people were red,

everything else was 70 degrees.

So everything was cool.

In the jungle, everything's a hundred degrees.

Everything is red.

He can't see anything.

And Joel said, "Get a water truck.

Fill it full of ice and water.

Bring it back.

The environment was sprayed down with ice water.

It worked.

So every time we used this fucking camera,

we were spraying down the jungle.

The jungle heat was also starting

to affect the Austrian lead's way with words.

We actually went over the lexicon of words

and how they sounded.

The script was showing signs of heat stroke.

Get to the chopper!

Well, we called it "get to the java"

'cause that's what he said.

We had to get him to say "chop"

and then "-er" to get to the "chopper."

Get to the chopper!

Meanwhile, the FX team

was having bigger problems.

The alien suit was unmanageable

and the actor in it wasn't much better.

There's a big pole between his legs

keeping him balanced.

They can't put him in the leg extensions

'cause everything was like 45 degree angle.

This was, you know, a major fuck-up.

On somebody's part.

And it was not Boss Films, it was not Steve Johnson's.

I mean, why would I just suddenly fuck up totally?

Because he protested that from day one.

We all knew these things wouldn't work.

I can't do this, this isn't gonna work.

- But production insisted. - Well then

you'll make it work.

You know, it was just impractical.

And now the martial artist

would have to become a trapeze artist.

And so they will have briefed Jean-Claude

to set up this giant thing with a cable.

John calls action.

It was like a Gilligan's Island snare trap.

He just like goes up on his back feet and he's caught.

Jean-Claude thought that he was gonna be doing

back flips off trees.

And it was his first movie since he fell off

the turnip truck, you know, from Brussels.

- It just didn't work. - And so he was

very violently angry when he found out.

Got us in here to do your dirty work.

Joel went ballistic, John went ballistic.

Joel said, "I'm gonna go back to the studio

and tell him this doesn't work."

And with that, Joel Silver

sent the muscles back to Brussels.

He passes out, Joel goes up to him

and says, "You're fired."

Why did he get the boot?

Well that part's still a little fuzzy.

He caused a lot of trouble

and complained until it got to the point

Joe Silver told him he'd never work again.

Joel Silver fired him because he was afraid of height.

He wouldn't rehearse.

He was a bit of a whiner when it came to

how hot everything was.

Joel had solved one problem.

Now it was time to confront the other.

- Knock knock. - That military knock

on the door. And I knew it was Joel.

I said, "Just a minute."

I did a quick line to fortify myself.

Joel is a very powerful

kind of predator-like creature himself.

And they're like, "What the fuck happened out there?"

They definitely kind of like blamed him for it.

With no suit or actor

to bring the creature to life,

Joel Silver had fumbled in the jungle.

They were over budget and they were over schedule.

There was a great impetus to pull out of Mexico.

And once Fox Studios found out,

there was only one option.

"You know, this is all stupid.

These guys wandering around the jungle,

let's get 'em out of there."

Another Schwarzenegger production

was in danger.

Panic sets in, they're running out of money.

Joel called, said this is a disaster.

We have to shut down.

The star had become a runner.

Arnold left Mexico to start production on "The Running Man."

And they just wrapped us, they put us all

on planes and sent us home.

It's nice to get this off my chest, and cut.

Production on Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Hunter"

has been shut down and the crew sent home from Mexico

due to Boss Films' creature's suit

being completely unusable.

The studio didn't understand

I think how it was gonna work.

Really frightened that it was all gonna go down there.

With the third act yet to be shot,

would editor John F. Link be edited out?

At that point, we just shut the cutting room down.

Meanwhile, the now in-demand star

was running off to another 1987 commitment,

leaving producer Joel Silver running around

trying to salvage something from his dailies.

- I'll be back. - Well, that was yet

to be determined.

I don't know, a month or so later,

I got a call from Joel to come back on the film.

While cutting in the infrared vision effect.

John would find a way to fix a narrative hole,

the creature's perspective.

Right away the story starts to make sense.

- Any time. - Every time he hit it,

you know the monster's looking at him.

But would it be enough

for Fox to add more money to an already substantial budget?

They said, well we wanna remind you

that you get no more money than you have.

We had to shut down and restart up.

It's gonna cost more money.

And they said, we don't care.

When Fox president Larry Gordon resigned

in January 1986, his replacement,

Leonard Goldberg was open to see what John had come up with.

Joel had to go into the board there at Fox

and show them what we had.

After just one hour of rough cut,

Producer Joel Silver was given an extra $1.5 million

to redesign the creature's suit from scratch.

But I think with the success of "Commando"...

Where did you learn how to do that?

...and I think with literally three months

before that, Joel Silver

and Lethal Weapon exploding onto the scene.

If it hadn't been for Joel's winning streak

heading that way,

that could have been-- very easily been shut down.

Oh, what do you wanna hear, man?

Everything was set for "Hunter"

except for one little hiccup.

The title was always Hunter because to us it was a hunter.

It was changed because of the TV series Hunter.

Well, I figured it was a memo mix-up.

Ridiculous.

I heard a lot about you, Hunter.

We came up with "Predator." It seemed to work.

We were hearing about it like,

"Oh, there's this movie, 'Hunter.'"

And then it turned into "Predator."

With a new title and money in hand,

that extra 1.5 million would help

director John McTiernan's key predator problem.

I will not have an asshole

in a Godzilla suit starring in this movie.

And whose job would it be

to create the impossible?

"Predator" came to Stan

through the suggestion of Arnold.

The call went out to Stan Winston's studio,

the up and coming monster shop

and its team that had just brought the Terminator to life.

- Get out. - Arnold had finished

filming "Running Man"

and was back on "Predator" to get the final act in the can.

Arnold had said, "You've gotta talk to Stan."

And one day Stan comes in with Joel Silver, McTiernan

and Arnold Schwarzenegger

and they're talking about something.

And we're like, "Oh my God, it's Arnold Schwarzenegger."

And he walked around the shop, he's like, "Hello, how are you?

Very nice to meet you."

So we were all, us young guys, we're like

ears to the door while they were in there talking,

we're like picking up bits and pieces like, "Tell him what?"

The grownups were discussing creature suit 2.0.

We begged Stan not to take the job

because we had eight weeks to build this suit,

which was just unheard of.

And "no" wasn't an option.

"And Steve Wang and Matt Rose, you're in charge."

And I was just like, "Okay, thank you, Stan."

John McTiernan wanted

less organic, more military.

Futuristic soldier.

Somebody with like metallic armor

and you know, like mechanical weaponry.

So I thought, well I don't know how to design that stuff,

you know, so I took a stab at it

and then Stan loved it and they okayed it.

And so that's how we ended up building it.

The old suit had leg extensions

for a five-foot-nine actor.

The new suit needed someone a little taller.

Kevin Peter Hall.

He had just played Bigfoot in "Harry and the Hendersons."

Hall was also the monster

in Troma Entertainment's "Monster in the Closet."

And it was recommended

that he was very good in uncomfortable suits

and also a good performer.

So Kevin came in a few times to try on the body suit

before it was painted

and just see any kind of problems we have

to address and fix.

He makes the Predator so great

because it's just an immense creature.

An immense creature that could actually stand

toe to toe with six-foot-two Arnold.

And as it turns out, had a surprising sense of style.

Stan was drawing dreadlocks. At that time,

everybody you know who went to college

was into Bob Marley and the Wailers.

And we're like, "The evil guy's gonna have the dreadlocks?"

And I suggested to Stan, "What if you--

Maybe they could be like sensing devices or something."

The team was tangled up in hair.

But the real breakthrough would come from a director

who knew a thing or two about aliens.

She's supposed to be some kind of consultant.

Mandibles made and suit constructed.

We only had time to do one suit and like a couple heads.

It was up to Steve

and associate Matt Rose to paint it over one weekend.

We came back Monday morning

and they were a hundred percent done.

And it was probably one of the greatest paint jobs

I've ever seen.

I was sleeping like once every three days.

It was nuts.

I was hallucinating driving home.

And Stan even said, this is probably the best paint job

ever done in the history of motion pictures.

And while the paint dried, it was time

to cook up the Predator's weapons system.

Also designed by Steve.

You know, there wasn't a shot

of the backpack in my original design.

I was watching a lot of anime at the time, like "Robotech."

Rick, how are you feeling?

And so as a kind of a tribute,

I took the actual model kit parts of the robots.

And I put it on the actual backpack.

They're very visible.

Like if you know what you're looking at,

you can see that's exactly what those things are.

The gun that you see that you know is so iconic now?

It's canon now, literally, no pun intended.

That was something I designed and sculpted in one day.

And although some of the original shots

of the invisible suit would remain.

I got a score to settle.

In the movie itself, some of the original shots

that were used based on the shape

of the the Boss Films Predator was actually used

'cause I saw those shots in the tests

and they were the exact same shots.

With a new suit ready,

production resumed in the jungle.

But the script?

We did not know exactly

what was gonna happen in the third act.

And with money running out fast,

the clock was ticking.

And we couldn't have had more than three, four

or five million to finish everything up.

Not much.

After eight months hiatus,

the budget for "Predator" was on a knife's edge.

But filming resumed in a more cost-effective Mexican jungle

in February, 1987.

Except that there are things

that are running around us that could actually kill us.

Not everything had legs.

The natives were like, ah!

It turns out that was a two-step snake.

If it bit you, you take two steps and you're dead.

Every time we got our meals,

the first few days, there were bugs in our food.

And we said to the caterer, "Take this crap back.

We're not eating it, it's got bugs in it."

He would say, "Guys, we're in the middle of the jungle.

The bugs are in charge."

Thanks.

But would the largest creature on set

be even more of a pain in the ass

when Schwarzenegger first saw it?

Look at me.

One look at it and you knew that it was gonna work.

Arnold really loved it.

He thought it was a super cool monster.

In no small part thanks to Kevin Peter Hall.

What's great about Kevin is that he's a really good actor

and then he's an amazing mind.

He speaks so much through his body,

but whenever he's on there, you just feel that presence.

And that presence was felt

the moment the Predator's mask came off.

The actual mandibles themselves were radio-controlled.

I was hand-holding the camera filming this thing.

There were four young guys behind me,

all with little remotes in their hand.

The ugly mouth worked perfectly.

But how about the Predator's shoulder-mounted cannon?

They had packed the gun with six different squibs.

They fired the gun and literally the entire gun exploded.

And we're like, Kevin, Kevin, you okay?

And all we heard from behind the mask was, "What happened?"

He was fine.

The team had survived the heat, the bugs,

and the budget battles.

And with filming complete, it was up to the small team

of editors and director John McTiernan

to shape the fever dream in the jungle into a cohesive film.

John McTiernan was like this film genius.

He was this odd little guy.

He loved the mechanical things you know, to thread the Moviola.

There's these little mechanical things. You could just tell

how his brain was working

'cause there's a lot going up there

and you could see it in this film.

Once completed,

the film was presented to the studio.

And we were just this little B movie

that was just chugging along.

Wasn't really sure what it was going to be.

We only previewed it once and that was in New York.

And we didn't make any changes after we previewed.

"It's an Arnold movie, let's hope it's good."

It was,

making over 98 million worldwide

against a $15 million budget.

We need the best. That's why you're here.

= From a California beach to a nameless hunter

and finally to the Predator.

Our development executive turned to me

and he goes, "It's a hit." Like that, you know, "Yeah."

And my phone started ringing,

and I got 15 job offers in one month.

For some, "Predator" opened doors.

For others, it slammed them shut.

When I went back to Boss Film

after the debacle in Mexico, of course they fired me.

They're like, "What do you do when you have a tumor?

That Johnson character's a tumor.

You cut it out!"

But despite bruised egos

and plenty of pink slips,

this unlikely crew pulled together

when it mattered the most.

Everything was in place for it to be a hit.

We had a tremendous cast.

Jim and John Thomas wrote a tremendous script.

I mean, Stan created such an iconic creature.

A hundred years, they'll still be making

"Predator" movies, I'm sure.

McTiernan did a good job directing it.

And Joel Silver's an action producer.

And even after a brutal production,

they came back asking for more.

I was in his trailer when they approached him

on "Predator 2."

And I watched Arnold turn him down flat.

Remember, the door swings both ways.

And he said to me, Jesse, it's too soon.

And he was completely correct

because if you look at what he did with "Terminator,"

he waited for the people to demand it.

Instead, his next project...

- It's showtime. - ...would run headlong

into the action comedy genre.

Say the word, man, you can be the one doing the stalking.

But for a film called "Running Man,"

the process would be anything but simple.

- Arnold got very angry. - You coldblooded bastard.

All I knew was the movie was in trouble.

Go!