Latino Review first reported a couple weeks back that Kontroll and Armored director Nimrod Antal had emerged as the frontrunner for the directing gig on Predators, the Robert Rodriguez-led reboot of the Predator franchise. Ain’t It Cool News has now confirmed that report, and Harry Knowles also got the opportunity to ask Rodriguez some questions about the project. Fans who were worried about the franchise being further butchered after the AvP films can rest easy, as Rodriguez seems to be saying all the right things.

Some of the key things he’s saying include:

• They want the film to be a “character driven action movie.”
• They’re still writing, but the plot “involves a very intense group of people stranded on a Predator planet discovering unspeakable horrors (that are not always from outside their group).”
• Fox may be the studio financing the project, but after the failure of the AvP films, they’re actively trying to keep it as far from being a studio project as possible. One of the guys at Fox told Rodriguez, “No one is ever going to talk about AvP again after this film, I will stake my life on it.” Rodriguez goes on to promise, “Failure is not an option.”
• KNB EFX Group (From Dusk Till Dawn, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, the Wardrobe) will be handling the special effects, and they’re trying to do as many practical effects as possible, including building their own creatures.
• Rodriguez says the way Antal can work with actors reminds him of Quentin Tarantino.

Rodriguez seems to have a tremendous amount of faith in Antal, and the early buzz on Armored has been positive. I have yet to see any of his films (something I should rectify immediately), but if the hype is true, we could be seeing Antal’s still relatively young career start to kick into high gear. But going back to Predators, from the studio to the producers, it sounds like they’re trying really hard to make this as good a project as they can, knowing full well that fans deserve a kick ass version of Predator again. Let’s hope this good energy can translate to celluloid.

Head over to AICN to read the full exchange between Harry and Rodriguez.

Tags: Nimrod Antal, Predators, Robert Rodriguez