Introduction
November 21, 1990, was the day Predator 2 stalked into theaters. It feels, at once, like yesterday and another era. Join Cinema Scholars as we mark the film’s 35th anniversary, a brass-and-blood sequel spectacle that deserves a fresh look. We honor the guerrilla filmmaking, the prosthetic wizardry, and the creativity that turned a studio sequel into a cult classic.
It’s also a moment to look forward. Predator: Badlands has just been released in theaters across the nation, carrying the franchise into new territory. It’s also casting a long shadow back over what director Stephen Hopkins and VFX wizard Stan Winston built in L.A. all those decades ago.
From Golf Course to Gangland — A Sequel Was Born
Predator 2 began life not as a Los Angeles crime thriller, but as a direct continuation of the 1987 original. Early drafts of the script, which featured Dutch (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger), were circulated. Some early versions even opened on a golf course. However, studio realities and other commitments reshaped the project.
When Schwarzenegger opted to focus on Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991), the film’s tone shifted. Producer Joel Silver and writers Jim and John Thomas steered the script toward a near-future urban western set in a sweltering Los Angeles. Director Stephen Hopkins recalls that the production “hastily rejigged” around those changes — choosing a 1997-ish future LA. He also leaned into a louder, bolder aesthetic.
Hopkins has been refreshingly blunt about his approach, stating in an interview with SciFiNow:
“It’s so over the top… I just sort of went for it and made the biggest, boldest, loudest movie I could make. I was only 29 years old — I was like a rampant child, running around Los Angeles, blowing the shit out of everything and making things as bloody as possible.”
That energy is one reason Predator 2, while divisive at its release, has aged into a cult favorite.
Glover’s Own Blood, Sweat, and Tears
With a script retooled around a tough, streetwise detective, the producers cast Danny Glover as Lieutenant Mike Harrigan — a cop whose toughness is earned through bruises and exhaustion rather than movie-star invulnerability. Glover’s performance was physically exhausting. He later told the L.A. Times that training for the film was intense:
“I went into training for this picture five weeks before we started shooting. I ran four miles a day, six days a week, at 7 a.m. on the sand not far from where I live in San Francisco…After running, I worked out at a gym and pumped iron so I could be convincing. Also, I wanted to survive.”
Glover also noted that many stunts — including high, rooftop work — were his, not a stunt double’s. Thus, proving he wasn’t, in fact, getting too old for this shit.
That commitment mattered because the Predator remained, in large measure, a first-person presence. The threat was often imagined by actors and suggested through practical effects, prowling choreography, and Hopkins’s bold editing choices.
![Predator 2 - Official® Trailer [HD]](https://i0.wp.com/i.ytimg.com/vi/6yPdBVUP5Zw/hqdefault.jpg?ssl=1)
The Creature
Predator 2 leaned hard on practical creature work at a moment when CGI was not yet a storytelling crutch. Stan Winston Studios (SWS) returned to expand and refine the original Predator design. He added more visible armor, more complex facial mechanics, and multiple suit variants for different camera demands.
Kevin Peter Hall reprised the in-suit performance, and the suits incorporated animatronic facial systems that required teams of puppeteers for close-ups. As Hopkins put it:
“If the Predator had its mask off, two or three different people were operating the face and head. Stan Winston was a genius and came up with all these crazy ideas.”
SWS also produced the now-famous trophy cases — rows of alien skulls and bones that hinted at a wider galactic history. One tiny Easter egg — an Alien (Xenomorph) skull tucked on the rack — started as a playful throwaway idea from Winston’s crew but lived large onscreen. Hopkins admits he “featured it more than I was supposed to” and ultimately created a shared universe.
Creating a Near-Future L.A.
The production design of Predator 2 fused retrofuturism and street grit: seventies cars, heat-worn palettes, and a city scavenged for cinematic texture. Hopkins hired production designer Larry Paull (of Blade Runner and Back to the Future fame) and cinematographer Peter Levy.
To maintain the quality of the optical effects, the crew even shot some scenes on 70mm film, a practical way to get around the limitations of compositing in the film era. The goal of the visual program was to give the impression that L.A. was a hot frontier town where the law had crumbled and predators could stalk rooftops undetected.
Stunts, Motion Control, and Practical Problem-Solving
Many Predator sequences were technical feats. This included motion-control camera work for creature shots, wire work for creature leaps in near darkness, and elaborate stunt setups in cramped or dangerous urban locations.
Hopkins has said the film was “made in a guerrilla style by a bunch of maverick people.” They often improvised on-set solutions to stay on budget, from scaling bathroom sets to make the Predator feel physically larger to sourcing fluorescent props from a Halloween shop for the creature’s “healing” effects. The subway setting for the ship reveal is a case study in economical horror: reveal less, suggest more, and let the audience’s imagination carry the weight.
Score and Post-Production
Alan Silvestri returned to score Predator 2, crafting a soundtrack that leaned into action motifs while complementing the Predator’s mechanical and ritualistic personality. The music’s percussive gestures helped the film bridge its action beats and its more uncanny creature moments. Post-production relied on optical effects and layered practical photography. A time-consuming process that, by design, made the Predator feel present rather than pasted on.
Looking Back and Ahead
Upon its release, Predator 2 opened strongly at the box office but divided fans and critics who compared it to the original. Over time, however, viewers have returned to it as a document of late-80s/early-90s action cinema. Loud, politically incorrect, creatively loose, and thrillingly inventive. Hopkins suggests people grew fond of the film over time because it captures the “fun age of filmmaking” when set pieces were shot for real and filmmakers took audacious risks.
As we celebrate the film’s 35th anniversary, the franchise is once again in the headlines. Predator: Badlands is now playing in theaters. This fresh, high-profile entry promises to push the worldbuilding in new directions and will reshape how audiences see the earlier films. Whether this latest installment echoes the practical effects spirit of the earlier movies or embraces modern filmmaking tools, it will invite a new appreciation of the craft that went into Predator 2.
Final thoughts On Predator 2 and its Legacy
The making of Predator 2 remains a masterclass in problem-solving under pressure. The film’s production never had the luxury of endless reshoots or digital fixes. Instead, it relied on:
- Practical creature performance and animatronics, crafted by Stan Winston Studio and operated by teams of specialists.
- On-set inventiveness (shrinking sets, Halloween-shop props, strategic daylight choices) to sell scale and alien technology.
- Performers willing to take physical risks (Danny Glover’s training and rooftop work) to ground the spectacle and human stakes.
These lessons, cooperation between the director, effects house, actors, and designers, practical inventiveness when money is tight, and a dedication to storytelling, are timeless. Fans and filmmakers alike can look back on Predator 2 as a reminder that imagination, skill, and occasionally reckless energy can make monsters feel frighteningly and memorably real. It’s also a time capsule of a particular style of blockbuster filmmaking as the franchise enters its fifth decade with the release of Predator: Badlands.
