It’s no secret that Jean-Claude Van Damme was meant to play the Yautja in the original Predator movie. This isn’t some weird trivia posted on IMDb that somebody made up. Van Damme actually suited up as the Predator, but none of his footage made it into the final film, since he was replaced by Kevin Peter Hall.
There are differing accounts of how Van Damme left the role. According to the Belgian actor, there wasn’t any major drama. He simply struggled to work in the monster suit and vocalized it. “When Joel [Silver] asked me to jump, I knew it was going to be a bad one,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “I said, ‘This is impossible, Joel. I think we’re going to have a problem.’ Then he replaced me.”
Predator‘s visual effects supervisor, Joel Hynek, provided an entirely different version of the story. It’s almost too outlandish to believe and fathom, but hey, this wouldn’t be the strangest JCVD story ever told. In fact, it might not even cut the top five in that regard.
“I was in Joel Silver’s trailer, and he had called for Jean-Claude to come see him,” Hynek told The Hollywood Reporter in a separate interview. “And he comes in the trailer and Joel starts saying, ‘You gotta stop kickboxing!’ – because [Jean-Claude] wanted to kickbox – and he was telling him, ‘Look, the Predator is not a kickboxer.’ And Van Damme was like, ‘I must do that; that’s how I see the Predator.’ And Joel said, ‘Well, you’re fired. Get out of here.’ And Van Damme says, ‘Kiss my balls!’ and walks out, and that was the end of that.”
Is it true? Well, the only people who’ll know for sure are the ones who were there to witness it. However, there is another story from Richard Chaves, who plays Poncho in Predator, indicating that Van Damme wanted to make a name for himself. Remember, this took place pre-Bloodsport, so this would have been JCVD’s claim to fame at the time.
“I remember getting a phone call in my room from Joel because Jean-Claude, him and I hit it off right away, and I thought that he would’ve been incredible as [the Predator] but he wanted his face to be seen,” Chaves said. “And I remember [Joel saying], ‘You go down there and talk to him and convince him that he’s the alien and he’s gotta get into the suit!’ And so I went down and I spent a couple of hours trying to convince him that, you know, he’d be in this costume.”
Look, in the end, everything worked out for the best for everybody. Hall was a terrific Predator, and Van Damme went on to have an incredible career without this credit. Although, there is a part of our gremlin mind that wants to see a kickboxing Yautja facing off against Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Dutch Schaefer. That’s the Predator movie we still desperately need to see.
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Predator (1987) is available to stream on Hulu and Disney+, or to rent/purchase on Prime Video, Apple TV, and YouTube.
