Before the gigantic Kevin Peter Hall turned Predator (which also fought Wolverine in a crossover) into one of the most iconic cinema monsters in John McTiernan’s 1987 classic, “Predator,” a pre-fame Jean-Claude Van Damme was hired to play the villain. Action and sci-fi fans know this trivia because the lore and backstory behind it is infamous due to Van Damme’s well-documented difficult behavior on set – even before he became the action star we know him today. He had to wear an alien suit that looked nothing like the final version we saw in the original film and its first sequel.
As special effects artist Steve Johnson and Matt Winston recalled in a behind-the-scenes excerpt (via Stan Winston School), the first Predator suit resembled a giant insect with an ant-like head. It was more fitted to be in an episode of the “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers” than an R-rated sci-fi action horror. Van Damme loathed it for several reasons. He thought it looked stupid, physically restrictive, and he could barely breathe in it through a tube that was provided for that reason alone. He was picked for the part solely because of his martial art agility, essentially being a stuntman. When it became obvious that he couldn’t perform in the oversized rubber suit, he had to go — alongside the costume the studio ordered to be redesigned after seeing some test footage.
That’s the more-or-less official story of how JCVD exited the Predator franchise before it even began. But if you ask the actual people who were involved in making the picture (as The Hollywood Reporter did in 2019), the personal accounts get wilder and more conflicting each time.
Some versions of why Jean-Claude Van Damme was laid off from Predator
As per THR’s piece, “Predator” producer Joel Silver, star Bill Duke, visual effects supervisor Joel Hynek, and stunt coordinator Craig Baxley have all had slightly different recollections of what really went down regarding Jean-Claude Van Damme and the atrociously ugly suit. Some of them said Van Damme had an attitude problem from the start, thinking that he was there to showcase his kickboxing talent. Others claimed he passed out so many times during shooting, due to the suit being like a rubber furnace in the heat of Mexican jungle, that Silver fired him after a few weeks. There’s also an account that says Van Damme got freaked out when they put the expensive ant-like prosthetic head on him. He took it off and threw it on the ground, essentially breaking the thing into pieces.
We’ll probably never know exactly what happened, and that’s okay, because it really doesn’t matter. Losing the job was a blessing in disguise for Van Damme, who quickly moved on and shot 1989’s “Kickboxer,” which established his career. With the suit redesigned and a new stuntman jumping in it, “Predator” was a hit at the box office, making over $59 million worldwide with a $15 million budget (via Box Office Mojo). It became one of the best sci-fi action movies ever made. In the end, everything worked out in the best way possible for all parties involved — and that’s hardly a common outcome in Hollywood.
