Exclusive : Berger on Predators

If there’s one thing that irked me (though I have more than a singular beef with those films) about the “Alien vs. Predator” movies it’s that they were ostensibly made without the fan base in mind. Not only did those films put special-effect (lousy effects, mind you) before story, they completely raped the Dreadlocked Alien Hunter. The Predator may have been new, improved, and outfitted with more new-fangled gadgets than Sigmund Georgievich Rosenblumat a cold war convention, but it didn’t seem to bare much similitude to the character created by the late, great Stan Winston for 1987s “Predator”. And maybe because Stan – and I could tell this was a sore spot with him whenever I mentioned it, and rightfully so – wasn’t asked to be part of those films.

This morning I had a chance to chat to KNB’s Howard Berger (on the set of “The Chronicles of Narnia : Voyage of the Dawn Treader” here in Australia) who assured me that the fans are going to be very happy with the ‘Predator’ (or should I say ‘Predators’) that his team have created for the Robert Rodriguez-produced “Predators”.

“I just saw some photos today and they look absolutely fantastic!”, says Berger, who got his start working with Stan Winston on films like “Predator” and “Aliens”. ‘’Greg [Nicotero] is supervising and masterminding that one. So we're in pre-production on [it] right now, and we're also doing Priest - based on the graphic novel - which is currently shooting in Los Angeles. We're doing all the creatures and make-up effects stuff for it.’’

Berger, who won an Oscar for his work on the first “Chronicles of Narnia” film (and whose latest film, “Surrogates”, opens this week), says ‘’we wanted to have the Predator look as it did in the original film. We went back and looked at the original. I actually worked in the shop with Stan Winston on the first film. It was great to be able to go back to the series having not been involved in any of the sequels, and it was also great to be able to make sure we built them as Stan Winston did.’’ While Berger supervises “Dawn Treader” in Queensland, Nicotero perfects the ‘Predators’ back home in Los Angeles.

‘’They look really fantastic. There's a whole bunch of cool [Predator's] in the film, and everyone's going to be very happy that we've been very faithful to the Stan Winston designs. It's out next year. It's shooting very soon.’’