The Predator 2018: Cast, Plot and Ending Explained

The Predator 2018 is about a Predator ship that crashes on Earth, an army sniper who sees it happen, and a son who ends up playing with the wrong piece of alien armor. Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook) is on the scene when the ship comes down, and he mails some of the alien's armor home to prove that what he saw was real. Government agent Will Traeger (Sterling K. Brown) then has Quinn detained. The package arrives at the McKenna house, where Quinn's son Rory (Jacob Tremblay) receives it and starts playing with the gear.

That is a neat piece of setup, because it ties the creature's technology to a child instead of a soldier, and it gives the film a ticking clock that has nothing to do with a jungle. If you are coming from predator 1987, where a hunter stalks a squad through the trees, this is a different kind of story, with the hunt reaching into a family home and a government lab.

The film runs 107 minutes and carries an R rating in the US, a 15 in the UK and an MA 15+ in Australia. It was directed by Shane Black, who also appeared as Rick Hawkins in the 1987 original, and it follows predators 2010 in release order. If you want to see where it sits among every film, the predator movies in order guide lays out both release and chronological order.

The full plot of The Predator 2018 follows one escape, one arrival and one crash, and it ends with a promise of more fights. After Traeger takes Quinn into custody, the government keeps the alien in a lab for study. The captured Predator escapes the lab, which turns a contained experiment into a loose hunter.

Meanwhile, Rory is wearing the armor he received in the mail, and by wearing it he accidentally draws the attention of more Predators. A second, much larger Predator arrives, kills the first one and takes Rory to its ship, which it plans to destroy. This is the film's central escalation: the first creature is treated as a threat, and then the second one makes the first look small.

The finale is a race to the ship. Nebraska Williams (Trevante Rhodes) sacrifices himself to bring the ship down, and Nettles (Augusto Aguilera) dies in the crash. Quinn and Casey Brackett (Olivia Munn) then kill the big Predator.

The last scene happens after the fight. A lab opens cargo from the wreck and finds what the film calls a Predator Killer exosuit, a suit built to fight Predators. Quinn agrees to pilot it.

The Predator 2018 premiered on September 6, 2018 in Toronto at the Ryerson Theatre, as part of the Midnight Madness program at the Toronto International Film Festival. It opened in the US on September 14, 2018 (confirmed), in the UK on the same day and in Australia on September 13, 2018 (both reported by Box Office Mojo).

The date was a moving target. The release moved from March 2, 2018 to February 9, then to August 3, and finally to September 14, 2018. The premiere had its own late change: the Associated Press reported that Fox cut the only scene of actor Steven Wilder Striegel hours before the screening after learning of his criminal history. Olivia Munn reportedly alerted the studio.

Box Office Mojo lists $51 million domestic and $109.5 million international, for $160.5 million worldwide on an $88 million budget. Predators (2010) grossed less worldwide, but it also cost far less to make, so The Predator was the more expensive film by a wide margin. For every film side by side, see predator box office.

The Predator 2018 ending closes the fight with the big Predator and then opens a door with the exosuit. Once Nebraska Williams brings the ship down and Nettles is lost in the crash, Quinn and Casey Brackett finish the larger Predator. The final scene shows a lab opening cargo from the wreck and finding an exosuit built to fight Predators, and Quinn agrees to wear it.

What does that mean? In my opinion, it is a deliberate sequel hook. The suit turns Quinn from a soldier who survives an encounter into a man equipped to pursue the aliens, and that shifts the series from running and hiding to a war footing.

How does it compare with the rest of the saga? Predator 1987 is a squad of mercenaries picked off in a jungle by one hunter, and predators 2010 drops eight strangers onto a hunting planet. Both keep the humans on the back foot. Here the humans capture a Predator, lose it from a lab, and then watch a second, larger one kill the first. That is the film's real escalation, and the exosuit is the humans finally getting hardware of their own.

There is also a production reason the finale feels crowded. Fox reshot the third act after test audiences, the climax was reshot in July 2018, and Keegan-Michael Key said about three quarters of the final act was rewritten. It could be argued that this explains why the ship crash, the sacrifice of Nebraska and the exosuit reveal arrive in quick succession. Edward James Olmos also lost his scenes as General Sanchez to the runtime cut, so the government side of the story is thinner than the setup suggests. The film ran 107 minutes in the end.

It could also be argued that the hook did not land, because the story did not continue. No sequel has been announced for The Predator 2018. The next main film, predator badlands (2025), went in a different direction entirely, following a young Yautja named Dek and a synthetic named Thia, and it also ended on its own sequel hook, according to TheWrap. As of the latest reporting, no film after Badlands has been dated, as covered on the new predator movie page.

The Predator 2018 was filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Principal photography ran from February to June 2017, and Shane Black announced the start on February 20, 2017.

Filming did not stop there. After test audiences, Fox reshot the third act, with additional photography in March 2018 and climax reshoots in July 2018. Keegan-Michael Key said about three quarters of the final act was rewritten.

The production calendar ran from the first shot in February 2017 to the last reshoot in July 2018, a span in which the release date also changed several times. For another shoot in the franchise, the Alberta locations used for Prey, see prey predator.

The Predator 2018 trivia mostly concerns who nearly led it, what was cut and how often the date moved.

• Benicio del Toro was in talks for the lead but fell out over scheduling, and Boyd Holbrook went into negotiations to replace him in October 2016.
• Shane Black was confirmed as director and co-writer with Fred Dekker in June 2014.
• Principal photography took place in Vancouver from February to June 2017.
• Fox reshot the third act after test audiences, and the climax was reshot in July 2018.
• Keegan-Michael Key said about three quarters of the final act was rewritten.
• Edward James Olmos was cast as General Sanchez, but his scenes were cut to shorten the runtime.
• Fox cut the only scene of actor Steven Wilder Striegel hours before the Toronto premiere after learning of his criminal history.
• The release date moved from March 2, 2018 to February 9, then August 3, and finally September 14, 2018.