by Britt Hayes

I regret to inform you that I missed the Predators footage Friday night. Robert Rodriguez presented two trailers and one scene from the upcoming film, directed by Nimrod Antal and produced by Rodriguez. Below are two concept images from the film from our friends at FEARnet, and you can now visit http://www.predators-movie.com/ to see some footage from the film, and another awesome picture of our dreadlocked friend.

The first image is obviously a Predator wearing what appears to be armor, and the second looks like a native creature from the Predator home planet, where this film takes place.

Rodriguez chose to show the footage at the Alamo Ritz in a theater that only has 80 seats. I’m not sure if this was his idea or maybe the lack of options for theaters last minute, but some people here at SXSW have theorized that he was trying to keep Predators on the down low. It didn’t work, obviously: 30 minutes after the screening (while I was standing in line for the next film), I checked my Twitter feed to discover that a couple of news outlets had already reported on the event.

Even though I missed the footage (and I’m told I didn’t miss much), the volunteer SXSW staff were handing out free goodies, like a t-shirt with the red tri-laser dots from the Predator’s weapon, and a laser pointer that shines the same tri-laser dots. Awesome little gifts for those of us who waited in the insanely long line for over an hour and couldn’t get in.