The Predator Cut Edward James Olmos from Film
While Shane Black’s The Predator features an impressive ensemble cast, one veteran actor didn’t make the final cut: Edward James Olmos.
The Battlestar Galactica star revealed that he had been cast to portray a four-star general overseeing the events of the upcoming sequel. But, in an effort to reduce the film’s runtime and improve the pacing, Olmos’ character was deleted from the final film entirely.
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“It was too long so my character, they had to take me out,” explained Olmos in an interview with Slash Film while promoting his new FX series Mayans M.C. “They were like half an hour, three quarters of an hour too long so I understand why.”
With no Predator film to date over two hours, the cuts probably maintained the film series’ tradition. Despite his removal, Olmos appeared to take the news in stride after learning from a phone call directly with the filmmakers that he would not appear in the theatrical cut.
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“It was gracious of them to call me and tell me, ‘Hey, we really feel bad,’ you know?” observed Olmos.
Directed by Shane Black from a script he wrote with Fred Dekker, The Predator stars Boyd Holbrook, Trevante Rhodes, Jacob Tremblay, Keegan-Michael Key, Olivia Munn, Sterling K. Brown, Alfie Allen, Jane Thomas, Augusto Aguilera, Jake Busey, and Yvonne Strahovski. The film arrives in theaters on September 14.
