With Shane Black’s The Predator headed to DVD, Blu-ray and 4K later this month, we’ve been seeing a whole lot of early concept art for the film, much of it differing greatly from what made it on screen. At one point, hybrid “PredMonkey” creatures were going to be featured in the film, while another unused concept would’ve tied the film into the Alien universe.
This latest art comes courtesy of Ken Barthelmey, who was at one point working on the design of the film’s “Upgrade Predator.” Larger and deadlier than the normal Predators, the Upgrade Predator (or Ultimate Predator, if you prefer) is the movie’s true villain, a massive beast pumped up with the DNA of other species’, including human beings.
Barthelmey’s early concept for the Upgrade Predator played up those human characteristics.
He notes, “An important aspect was that he has human DNA. In this early sketch I tried to make him look like a hybrid, and gave him more human looking traits.”
