Arnold Schwarzenegger played the lead role of Major Alan "Dutch" Schaefer in John McTiernan's original 1987 Predator movie, which still marks the character's only live-action appearance in the franchise.
However, a cryogenically-frozen Dutch did show up in an epilogue scene from the animated Killer of Killers movie, along with Danny Glover's Lt. Mike Harrigan from Predator 2 (1990) and Amber Midthunder's Naru from Prey (2022).
Director Dan Trachtenberg has previously revealed that he reached out to Schwarzenegger to get his approval to use his likeness in the scene, and later said that he would be interested in "cooking some stuff up" for the legendary actor in a future project.
During an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live this week, Arnie confirmed that the wheels are in motion, and he will be back as the cigar-chomping badass in a new Predator film. He also reaffirmed that King Conan and a Commando sequel are in the works.
Badlands producer Ben Rosenblatt previously revealed that Trachtenberg met with Schwarzenegger about potentially returning as Dutch down the line.
“Obviously, the holy grail of Predator movies would be getting Arnold back in there,” Rosenblatt said. “And it’s always been something in the back of our minds that it would be really great to see him come back to this franchise that he’s made iconic, and that’s made him iconic. Arnold and Dan have met a couple of times now. He’s been really interested in what we’re doing, he’s a real fan of what we’ve done so far, from what I understand. And we’re really excited. After Badlands, we’ll see and have more conversations."
Could the plan be for Dutch, Naru, Harrigan, and Badlands leads Dek and Thia to join forces for a massive event movie at some point? It might well be something 20th Century Studios/Disney and Trachtenberg have considered, but the filmmaker has clarified that he has no interest in "smashing the action figures together" anytime soon.
As for the long-gestating Conan sequel, Schwarzenegger previously revealed that the movie is moving forward at 20th Century Studios with none other than Christopher McQuarrie on board to write and direct.
"They just hired a fantastic writer/director who did Tom Cruise’s last four movies. They just hired him to write and direct King Conan. Now, what they do is that they write the part. They don’t write them like I’m forty years old, you write it to be age-appropriate. I’ll still go in there and kick some ass but it will be different.
With King Conan, it's a great old story that Conan was forty years as King and now he gets forced out of the kingdom and there’s conflict, of course, but somehow he comes back and there’s all kinds of madness, violence, magic and creatures and stuff like that. And now, of course, there’s all kinds of special effects. The studio has plenty of money to make those movies really big so I’m looking forward to all of those projects."
Predator: Badlands is helmed by returning director Dan Trachtenberg (Prey, 10 Cloverfield Lane) and marks the franchise’s highly anticipated return to the big screen with a story that expands and redefines the Predator Universe.
Set in the future on a deadly remote planet, Badlands follows a young Predator outcast (played by newcomer Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) who finds an unlikely ally in Thia (Emmy and Golden Globe nominee Elle Fanning) as he embarks on a treacherous journey in search of the ultimate adversary.
Produced by John Davis, Dan Trachtenberg, Marc Toberoff, Ben Rosenblatt and Brent O’Connor, Predator: Badlands opens exclusively in movie theaters on November 7 in IMAX, Dolby Cinema, RealD (3D), Cinemark XD, 4DX, ScreenX and premium screens everywhere.