Adrien Brody recalls how he won the lead role of Royce inPredatorsafter he was initially eyed for a different character. Released in 2010, the third installment in thePredatorfranchise(not including theAlien vs. Predatormovies), was directed by Nimród Antal with a story that follows a group of soldiers and criminals as they attempt to survive on an alien planet. The film also stars Alice Braga, Laurence Fishburne, Topher Grace, Walton Goggins, Oleg Taktarov, Danny Trejo, and Mahershala Ali, and it marks one of Brody’s first action-hero roles.
In a recent video forVarietyin which he attempts to guess lines from his past films, Brody correctly identifies a Royce line fromPredatorsbefore recalling how he came to star in the film. The actor explains that the film’s creative team initially wanted him to play a different character, buthe was able to talk them into taking on Royce by using some key examples from the original 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger film. Check out his comment below:
That was a movie I grew up loving. Like, I remember cutting school and sitting with my friends in the front row watching Schwarzenegger in Predator. Interestingly, when they came to me with this they didn’t want me to play, not interestingly, but they didn’t want me to play Royce.
They wanted me to play another part and I advocated for why I’m right to play Royce and why soldiers don’t often look like Schwarzenegger. And it’s more about an emotional hardness and a military tactical awareness and intelligence, and that ultimately was what defeated the Predator even in Schwarzenegger film, not his brawn.
What Predators Meant For Adrien Brody
How The Movie Was Received
Prior toPredators, Brody’s experience as an action movie lead was relatively limited, so it’s not surprising he wasnt the first choice for Royce. The actor played action-forward character Jack Driscoll in Peter Jackson’sKing Kong, but he wasn’t the lead in that film. For Brody,Predatorswas mostly a success. ThePredatormovie has a respectable 65% critics' score onRotten Tomatoes, withreviews generally praising the movie’s no-nonsense action and the unique way it shook up the franchise.
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Made on an estimated budget of $40 million,Predatorsgrossed $127 million worldwide, making it a success. The film was successful enough that aPredators 2was in early development, but Fox ultimately pivoted and took the franchise in another direction.Brody and Braga would both have returned forPredators 2, according to screenwriter Alex Litvak, who described the film as “Die Hard on a Predator ship” during an interview withAvPGalaxy. Brody, however, would still end up appearing in action movies in later years, includingBullet Head(2017),Clean(2021), and several Hong Kong movies.
2018’sThe Predatorwas the next installment afterPredators, and that film was a critical and commercial disappointment.
Our Take On Brody In Predators
Royce Helped The Film Succeed
Predatorsmay not be the best movie in thePredatorfranchise, with that honor going either to the original or theacclaimedPrey(2022), but it is a lot of fun. It evolves the premise of the first two movies in an interesting way, features a compelling supporting cast, and has some great action set pieces. Brody, too, is convincing as an action hero, capturing both the tactical awareness and the physicality. It’s unlikely Brody will be returning to the franchise anytime soon, butPredatorsis all the better for it that he ended up playing the lead.
