Director Nimrod Antal talks 'Predators'

Director Nimrod Antal knows people make fun of his name, but he has the last laugh because he got to direct Predators. The first real sequel to the classic Predator pits a gang of earth’s killers against two tribes of alien warriors on a distant planet. Antal joined producer Robert Rodriguez in Austin for the South by Southwest film festival to show some footage and answer some questions.

Q: What did you think when you first met Robert Rodriguez to talk about Predators?

Nimrod Antal: Well, I was really nervous, given I’m a big fan. When you meet your heroes, you’re kind of unnerved. So I was a wreck, I was a nervous wreck, but I tried to put my geek emotions aside and try to concentrate on pitching him an idea that I thought would enhance the story that he put forward. That was really just concentrating on the hunt and trying to bring some of that back. The original film had this incredible quality. It was about this hunter we had never seen before and I felt that the films that had come after didn’t really represent that. We tried to incorporate as much of that into it, and I think that’s what I pitched you originally. That was just talking about incorporating tactics such as flushing, driving, tracking. I think again, the later films didn’t really concentrate on suspense and fear, just those classic things that make good horror movies work. So we again tried to go back to that. I think you guys are going to be really proud. You guys are going to be happy with it.

Q: How did you give each of the Predators a different personality?

Nimrod Antal: Aliens had the opportunity where there were just 1000 aliens. You didn’t really have to differentiate the characters as much but with Predator it’s more important. They are such individuals so we tried to do that, give each character his own mood, his own look, his own style. We didn’t want to go crazy. Robert and I had a lot of conversations about what worked in the original and what had not worked in the latter films. I think we both realized that staying true to the original and building off of that was a smart approach.  Again, we were just trying to incorporate different things and being cautious about it at the same time because we knew that it was such an iconic character. Getting too far away from it wouldn’t be Predator anymore. We tried to add on by, again, when we go back to hunting techniques and flushing, a lot of dogs were incorporated and things like that. One of our character, one of our Predators is a Predhound basically, or numerous Predhounds which turned out pretty awesome. We have a dog handler Predator, we have a Falconer Predator who has this UAVS kind of flying device that’s an eye in the sky for him. Then we have our main flushers, Mr. Black I think we were calling him at one point.

Q: What was it like having guys in Predator costumes on the set?

Nimrod Antal: It was a pretty cool experience. We had been shooting for about four or five weeks before we ever had a Predator on the floor. So that was a really strange experience, working with the actors every day and all of a sudden step out and there he is.  But we wanted practical as much as we could and we concentrated on doing practical as much as we could. There are no CG predators.

Q: Why was it important to cast “legitimate” actors like Adrien Brody and Lawrence Fishburne?

Nimrod Antal: It was really an honor just working with people of that caliber. Going in, I know that there were a lot of people that were questioning Adrien. I think Robert and I always had an argument, you know what? Let’s work with someone who’s a good actor. You can add all the other stuff on but you can’t make a good actor. It does require acting. I don't think a lot of people understand that fear and that suspense, maintaining that throughout an entire feature, being able to sustain and have you believe, that’s a very tough thing to do. I think Adrien and the entire cast and crew were just awesome. When you get to work with people of Lawrence Fishburne’s caliber, it just makes your life much easier… He’s one of those actors who can make the most mundane thing interesting. Watching him walk down a hallway is fascinating. It was actually interesting to watch the other actors because we had been together for almost two months at that point when Lawrence finally came to record with us. It just incredible seeing how the characters in the film are completely in awe with this character and they’re very apprehensive initially and just blown away by him. They were actually that. When Lawrence Fishburne showed up, you could see they were all at a loss for words, so it was fun working with him.

Q: What exactly is the story of Predators?

Nimrod Antal: Well, Robert and I were both fond of The Most Dangerous Game. Again, we just felt we had to just take it back to the hunt. We were fascinated by the concept of these hunters being hunted, these very dangerous characters being there in a very, very ugly situation and how they handle themselves. They were good adversaries I think for our Predators, though not all of them make it unfortunately. They were all very, very interesting characters. We did want to come up with these iconic characters but not make them comic bookish, give them all a heart and soul and give them all just memorable moments that you guys are all going to remember hopefully. One of my favorite characters, Stanz is this convict. He very proudly says he’s number three on the FBI’s most wanted list at one point. He is just hilarious in the film and has so many great moments. We really laugh with this guy, so ultimately when he does meet his demise, which is probably one of the more ugly ones in the film, you really go, “That was cool but that kind of sucked.” We went out of our way to keep the fans excited about the way that they hunt. Creatively I thought that was really interesting. In the original Predator film, you had the unit. You had a military unit that was a well oiled machine. They worked well together going into the situation. In our film, we have these complete strangers thrown together so creatively it was a very interesting dynamic. How do you get these people to work together? How do they overcome this obstacle that they’re facing? So that was a fun thing creatively.

Q: Has Fox been agreeable to letting you make an R rated Predators?

Nimrod Antal: I know that a lot of people may question, but they really did want the fans to love the film again. I know that with the AVP films, not all the fans were very happy with the direction those took. So we made a very, very big effort to take it back to where we hope you guys wanted it to be.

Q: Who are the new Predators?

Nimrod Antal: There are really two tribes. That’s what it comes down to. You have our old Predator who represented the old tribe that we all knew. This is a different tribe. This is a tribe you haven’t met yet and you really don’t want to. Fishburne refers to them as the difference between wolves and dogs. I thought that was an appropriate metaphor. Still only two tribes. There’s a lot of story value to it. You kind of imagine other stories that could be had from each character. Dark Horse is doing some great prequel comics before the movie comes out, a graphic novelization and then after that immediately a sequel follow-up that’s got some cool ideas. We’ve been working closely with them.

Q: Are there any direct tie-ins to the original movie?

Nimrod Antal: There is a reference to a ghost story you’ve heard. There’s also moments, there’s also shots, there’s also music. It was a fine balance of paying homage to the original but not monkeying off of it. But Adrien does say, “Get to the chopper!”  [Laughs] We wanted to do that.

Q: How do you direct a Predator?

Nimrod Antal: They would always mess with me too because when I’d try to speak with the actor, they’d start to move the mandibles. So all the actor would hear are the servos in the head going woo woo woo woo. I’m just standing there trying to say something. God forbid if one of the Predators didn’t do it right and we’d have to go up to this guy and say, “Well, you know, that was really great but I was hoping you could get…” and he’s just towering over you drooling on top of you. Then they’d be really intimidating because they’d go, “What?” I didn’t know they couldn’t hear.

Q: How did you make Austin look like this distant Predator planet?

Nimrod Antal: There was this one big sequence in Hawaii that I was running out of time and i couldn’t finish. I call Robert and I’m like, “Robert, please give me another day in Hawaii.” He’s like, “Nope, gotta come back now. We’ve got to finish up here.” I’m like, “But man, we’re never going to be able to replicate this location.” We had this eucalyptus forest and it was absolutely stunning. I knew there was no way we were going to find a eucalyptus forest in Austin. It just wasn’t going to happen. Robert said, “No, don’t worry about it. We’ll make it work.” I was pissed. I was like, “I’m not gonna finish…” stomping my feet. I went back, came back to Texas and they took us out to this one location and it was a pine forest, not a eucalyptus forest. It looked similar and I thought okay, we may be able to pull it off but the pines are brown. Eucalyptus is white. So cut to the pine forest we’re shooting the film in, Michael our set painter is painting a tree white. Someone on the crew comes up to him and goes, “Hey, Mike. Is that good for the tree?” And he says, “Man, this is what I paint cows with. Don’t worry about it.” I just thought it was incredible, and by the way it worked. You will never notice the difference between Hawaii and Texas in the sequence. I also have to say that you guys in Texas have some of the most incredible film crews. You always want another day, you always want another week, you always want another million. They don’t give it you. I remember there was a few times I was very frustrated. I was expressing that to Robert. He was like, “Man, listen. We’re going to do it, it’s going to great. Don’t worry.” Interestingly enough, it is and the only reason that happened was because he had such a spectacular team in place, he was so supportive. I’ve got to tell you, this crew just bent over backwards to make this movie happen. Everybody really gave a sh** and we were there, I don't know if you guys remember when it got down to minus at night here in December. These people just hustled all day long to make this happen, so my hat’s off to the Austin crew as well.

Q: What was your biggest production problem?

Nimrod Antal: The weather got really extreme. I remember the first day of shooting, we started in Hawaii actually. We got there and as we were about five minutes away from shooting, it just started pouring rain. That was extreme in Hawaii because we were in a part of Hawaii that we found out after the fact, it rains every day. Then we come back to Texas and we were either dealing with the heat or the cold. So I think the weather conditions made it kind of difficult on this film. Like Robert said, I always wanted more time. I was always hoping oh, just another day, another day. So that was my own personal struggle.