Schwarzenegger rejected a love interest to preserve Predator's horror

Predator nearly included a romantic subplot, but Arnold Schwarzenegger pushed back. In the film he plays Dutch Schaefer, a mercenary hunted in the jungle by an alien creature, and the presence of a love interest would have shifted the story’s focus. Studios had a habit of asking him to add a woman “to throw a woman in just for the sake of having in to sell a few extra tickets.” Schwarzenegger recounted telling an executive, “So, I say, how do you expect me to do that?

You know, here I am running through the jungle. The ten guys, ten of my soldier friends, are getting killed by this Predator that's chasing us down, and he's about to kill me. Do you want me to say to the girl, 'Let's go around the bush and have a little nookie here'?” The caller conceded, saying, “I guess you have a point.” The change mattered for character.

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