We did a little digging and it looks like Deadpool‘s visual effects supervisor Jonathan Rothbart (Avatar, Hellboy, Iron Man) will be next working on Shane Black’s The Predator, which starts shooting this February in Vancouver.
Jonathan’s IMDB page lists him working on the project as well, but confirmed to Post Perspective back in April at NAB 2016 he’ll indeed be tackling The Predator for director Shane Black as his next project.
He closely worked alongside Tim Miller in-house at Blur doing the effects for the film.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeYHDESZUF0
It doesn’t look like Jonathan Rothbart will be returning to make Deadpool 2, as you can imagine the effects workload on The Predator will likely be taking up a majority of his time. This might be yet another key member from the original Deadpool creative team not returning for the sequel.
Rothbart is not the only person from the Deadpool‘s effects team opting to make The Predator possibly instead of it’s sequel, as special effects supervisor Alex Burdett (Tron: Legacy, Jumanji, Event Horizon, Saving Private Ryan, Dawn of The Planet of The Apes) will also have a large role on the film too.
X-Men franchise effects department alum Blondel Aidoo (X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse, Minority Report, Spider-Man) will act as an visual effects producer, so the project is getting some mutant infusion from the X-Men effects team.
It’s extremely possible that both Blur and Weta could be the visual effects houses asked to do work on the film, as they both worked along with Rothbart on Deadpool and Avatar.
Tom Woodruff Jr. of Amalgamated Dynamics Inc. will be handling the creature effects on the film. The company is best known for their work on the Alien franchise and helped create one of the more superior predator designs with the Wolf predator from AVP: Requiem, even if the film wasn’t impressive the costume was.
The Predator will star Boyd Holbrook and Olivia Munn with a release date set for February 9th, 2018.