Robert Rodriguez Confirms Nimrod Antal Will Direct PREDATORS

After Harry from AICN gives a long winded boast about how he and Robert Rodriguez are BFF's, (seriously you should read it. Does anyone care that Harry has Rodriguez's number in his cell phone?) He finally tells the world that Rodriguez has chosen his director for Predators, that director is Nimrod Antal.

Antel is the guy that directed Vacancy which I liked and the upcoming film Armored which looks kind of lame. It should be interesting to see how Predators turns out with this guy at the helm.

So why didn't Rodriguez direct it himself?

When I was hired to write the original draft back in 1994, i was only brought on as a writer. I never thought I'd get to work on it in any other capacity. So a few months ago, when Alex Young at Fox contacted me about re-inventing the franchise using my original draft as a template for getting as far away as possible from the AVP movies, I jumped on it. It's hard to be just a writer on a picture, because you write in some of your really great ideas, and then off they go to someone else and you have no real involvement after that. I was already booked up as a director when this came back to me, but I still wanted to have a hand in making it. So I lobbied to have the movie done through my studios so I could oversee it in a stronger position than a producer usually takes on. Alex came down and saw Troublemaker Studios, and the facilities and crew that I've built up over the past 12 years, and he felt right away that this is where the movie should be made and that doing it down here would be the best way to protect it from the studio system. He was keen on making a very "non-studio" picture.

So I'll be taking a more upfront role as a producer than would normally be the case in Hollywood.

Sounds like it will be how Steven Spielberg did more directing on Poltergeist than the actual director Toby Hooper. So why did he choose Antel to direct the movie?

First of all, on a personal level I found him to be an outstanding presence, a great communicator full of ideas, and upon meeting him you can immediately understand how he is able to wrangle cast and crew and get the best out of everyone. I always loved Kontroll, where he proved himself to be a very resourceful and original filmmaker. When I saw Armored, I could tell he's also great with action and has a keen eye for casting. He reminded me of Quentin with how he was able to work with a group of very strong, singular actor talents and make it look effortless. I know he'll be able to get the most out of what we want to be an outstanding cast. We really want to go with a character driven action movie, because that's what we all remember about the original Predator, and we want to take it even further with this.

What does he have planned for the story?

I can't go too much into the story right now, because we're still writing. But it still involves a very intense group of people stranded on a Predator planet discovering unspeakable horrors (that are not always from outside their group). So like the original movie, the title does have a double meaning.
Aliens was a different take on the Alien idea, and an original movie in it's own right, and that's what we want to do with this.

As to how this movie will be viewed, one of the guys at Fox told me "No one is ever going to talk about AVP again after this film, I will stake my life on it."

And he's a really nice guy, so I don't want to see him dead. Now that lives are at stake, it's no longer a job it's a mission.

Failure is not an option.

So there it is! That's just a few of the question that was asked. Head on over to AICN to read the rest of the interview which has a few other interesting tidbits that you might like to hear.

I'm excited for this new Predator film project! I hope it blows everybody away the way they hope it does. As long as they make the film the fans want to see, then there shouldn't be a problem. What do you think about the new Predators film and it's new director?