McGregor Says He Turned Down ‘The Predator’

Last year Benicio Del Toro was slated for the lead role in The Predator.  When that fell through, the script was re-tooled to work more as an ensemble, with Boyd Holbrook and Thomas Jane now in the cast.  Conor McGregor though has said that at one point, he could’ve been the leading man.

AVP Galaxy reports that appearing at the ‘An Experience With’ event in Manchester yesterday, McGregor said the following;

“I’ll tell you there’s a lot of offers that I’ve turned down. I got offered The Predator movie. There’s a new Predator movie coming out and the guys came to me, did you see that horse thing I’ve done, the horse racing? That was like three days’ solid work for a hell of a lot of money, for three days.

During that three day course, the people from Predator who are having this new Predator movie, a blockbuster… They came in and tried to sell the whole shitt. ‘We want you to be the main guy and you’re gonna fight Predator’ and I’m like ‘This sounds brilliant! How much?’ Not enough.

We went back and forth negotiating and the number climbed up but if I was to do it [it] would mean eight weeks in Canada, in Toronto or somewhere. It’s too long a time. You can’t do a million things at once. The Pegasus thing was one thing because it was like three days, in and out. But seven, eight weeks on a film set is heavy as fuck. Plus it would have crept in around when he (McGregor’s unborn child) was due. I didn’t want to get tricky with that so I turned down that offer.”

Sorry, but something about this just doesn’t sound right.  First for whatever reason I don’t see Shane Black wanting to put McGregor front and centre, he’s pretty much an unknown quality when it comes to acting.  It just doesn’t sound right.  Second, a report from last week said the following;

An insider explained: “Conor really wants to start doing movies. He’s doing everything in his power to break into Hollywood.

So which is it?  He’s turning down killer roles or he’s dying to get one?  You can’t really do better than leading a huge Predator movie for Fox.  Maybe McGregor lobbied and didn’t get the job.  Black has been looking for ‘actors’.  I also see McGregor as somewhat of a clown (I still like him), I’d personally consider him for a support role… but as a lead? No way.

Sorry Conor, sounds like a tall tale.