Predator 2 Almost Made Steven Seagal Its Star Instead of Danny Glover

Predator 2 rules, and it is very not PG-13. Danny Glover gives it a different flavor than the first one’s jungle-jacked energy, which is a big part of why it works. But the sequel almost went a totally different direction: Steven Seagal nearly starred instead of Glover. Yes, really.

The almost-Seagal version

Back in 1990, Seagal briefly stepped away from his home base at Warner Bros. to do a project at 20th Century Fox. That detour ultimately became Marked for Death (arguably his best outside the Under Siege movies). But for a minute there, he was circling Predator 2 with director Stephen Hopkins. Patrick Swayze was also in the mix.

Hopkins says Seagal was actually on board, to the point where the director went to Seagal’s house specifically to talk him out of it. The meeting, per Hopkins, was a wild one: he didn’t see Seagal as the right kind of lead for the movie and worried the tone would slide from fun-trashy to just plain trashy. He describes Seagal as eager — like, very eager — but not a fit for the hero the film needed.

"He wanted to play a CIA psychiatrist who is also a martial arts expert and carried a gun... He crushed my hand, took me into a room with guns covering the walls, and later invited me to his Santa Barbara ranch to launch grenades. He was a little crazy at the time. I just said, 'This isn’t the way we’re going,' and we didn’t do it."

Hopkins also adds that he’s not a fan of Seagal, full stop. To be clear: the director’s take is that Seagal was desperate to make it happen, but Hopkins couldn’t see the movie working with him.

The Arnold curveball

Hopkins met with Arnold Schwarzenegger too, and says they got along fine. Arnold, however, bailed at the last second. Hopkins’s theory is that James Cameron didn’t want Arnold doing Predator 2 while they were gearing up for Terminator 2, which tracks with how tightly that movie came together. Hopkins even had an alternate opening in mind if Arnold had stayed on, along with other production bits he digs into in a new interview with Scream Magazine’s Howard Gorman.

• Steven Seagal: briefly left Warner Bros. to make a Fox project in 1990; almost did Predator 2; ended up making Marked for Death instead
• Danny Glover: ultimately took the lead role, giving the sequel a very different vibe than the original
• Patrick Swayze: was also considered during the search
• Arnold Schwarzenegger: almost returned; dropped out late, possibly due to T2 prep with James Cameron

How it shook out

I’m happy with the sweaty, delirious version we got — Glover grounding the chaos, the whole thing leaning into its gnarlier edges. But I can’t pretend I’m not curious about early-90s Seagal squaring off with a Predator. Could have been a blast. Could have been a disaster. Either way, it would not have been boring.