Benicio Del Toro Walks Away From THE PREDATOR
As you know, there's been plenty of reasons to be excited about Shane Black's The Predator: the promise of the "biggest" Predator movie of all time, the curious decision to set the film in the present day, the very real possibility that Dutch might return, and - last, but certainly not least - the fact that Benicio Del Toro, last seen being a complete badass in Denis Villeneuve's Sicario, would be headlining the film.
Well, about that:
Benicio Del Toro will no longer be hunting aliens, but Twentieth Century Fox is targeting a new hunter.
Del Toro has fallen out of negotiations with Fox to star in The Predator, the reboot of the alien action movie series that Shane Black is directing for the studio, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter.
The news comes to us from The Hollywood Reporter, who cite a number of scheduling conflicts as the reason for Del Toro's departure. This is a damn shame (I mean, come on: who didn't want to see Fenster squaring off against The Hunter?), but surely Twentieth Century Fox has an equally badass candidate in mind to replace him. Right?
...Fox is not sitting idly and has already pinpointed its new lead: Boyd Holbrook, one of the stars of Netflix's drug cartel series Narcos.
If you haven't gotten around to Narcos yet, you might also remember Boyd Holbrook from such films as Gone Girl, this summer's Morgan, and the criminally-underloved The Skeleton Twins (real talk: I have seen almost all of these things, and still had to go look up who Boyd Holbrook is; sorry, Boyd Holbrook!). He's no Del Toro, to be sure, but I suppose it's not the worst possible outcome.
And besides, you've got Shane Black directing (note: always bet on Black), and THR says the idea - in the event of Holbrook's hiring - will be to beef up The Predator's supporting cast. Sucks that we're losing Del Toro, but honestly, all of this sounds fine to me.
What do you guys think? Into it, ambivalent, outraged? Sound off in the comments below.
