Alien Explorations: Predator: Stephen E de Souza's Val Verde Universe of movies

leading from

a) The Pacific Courier Universe of Movies

A character that was a newscaster Gail Wallens would appear in more than one motion picture that Steven E de Souza wrote.

She appeared in the Bruce Willis movie Die Hard (1988) and then the Denzel Washington movie Ricochet (1991) .

In Die Hard there also appeared the Pacific Courier van/truck which became the main mode of transport for the terrorist characters of the movie.

A Pacific Courier Freight aircraft turned up in Jan De Bont's movie Speed (1994), since he had been cinematographer for Die Hard.

As as de Souza was concerned, this meant that the films existed in the same universe, and that would include all the Die Hard movies numbering five and the two Speed movies

This would be called the 'Pacific Courier universe of movies'.

Steven E de Souza : Now Gail Wallens here is interesting because, this character, Gail Wallens she reappears in another motion picture that I wrote for the same producers, erm, called Ricochet, a Denzel Washington movie, where we had her recap that same character, Gail Wallens, which means that Ricochet exists in the Die Hard er Pacific courier universe of films which we've established now includes all the Die Hard movies, five movies, two Speed movies, and Ricochet. So that is now, let's see, five, six, seven, that's eight movies, in what we're going to call for now the Pacific Courier universe of movies. (Rogue Commentary 22nd December 2020. Starts 1 hour :02 minutes, 11 seconds in - See: http://rogue-commentary.com/))

b) The Val Verde Universe of movies

However de Souza wanted to go even further and rename this universe of movies as the Val Verde universe

There was the idea that when you write a country into a story, and you were to say that the Ambassador of the United Nations from Uruguay is an international diamond smuggler, then you would get a lawsuit from the actual Uruguayan ambassador.

If they created a fictional name for the country, they could say all of these things about the government and not get an angry letter from a lawyer.

When de Souza wrote the screenplay for Commando (1985) starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, he came up with the name Val Verde as a country.

In the story, the character Arius (played by Dan Hedaya) who was the former ruler of Val Verde sends the lead character Colonel John Matrix to assassinate the new president

This would also become De Souza's 'go to fiction movie' when he wrote the screenplay for Die Hard 2 which included a character General Esperanza who was being brought to justice in America from the country of Val Verde

Steven E de Souza: However we could rename this universe of movies now the Val Verde universe of movies because in Die Hard 2, it is established that the er, General Esperanza who is being brought to justice in America is from the country of Val Verde, and the country of Val Verde also appears in the movie Commando, and it also... because it's my go to fiction movie. When you write these fictional movies, you want to write a movie, let's say you do a story, and you say the ambassador of the United Nations from Uruguay is actually er er an international diamond smuggler and now you get a lawsuit from the actual Uruguayan ambassador. So Val Verde was a country I made up for Commando so we could say all these things about the government and not get an angry letter from a lawyer. (Rogue Commentary 22nd December 2020 - See: http://rogue-commentary.com/)

c) Connecting with the Alien and Predator universe

With that, in de Souza's mind Val Verde would make a reappearance in Joel Silver's movie, Predator, in a scene where they take the helicopter across the border of a territory which a map reveals to be by the Chapada das Mangabeiras mountains of central Brazil, to drop the elite paramilitary rescue team with the lead played by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

One might assume that it was something thought about behind the scenes and also discussed with him.

Following that, since Alien had shown up as a trophy skull in Predator 2, and this led to the Alien Vs Predator movies, de Souza decided that they all had to be in the same universe that Val Verde existed in, there were more Predator movies, and this also connected with the film Prometheus.

With these these movies in which Pacific Courier and the nation of Val Verde existed in which was now about twenty movies, which probably had made about six or seven million dollars,

He could feel that the the Val Verde universe was even more important than any Marvel universe or the DC universe that someone might want to tell him about.

Steven E de Souza: So Val Verde makes a reappearance in Joel Silver's movie of Predator. This is where they land the helicopter across the border. So now there's been all those Alien movies which all fit now. They have to be in the same universe that Val Verde exists in, and then you have , er, pardon me, Predator movies, and Aliens met Predator, and then you have Prometheus.

So by now, we're up to about twenty movies that are all connected by these things, by er, Pacific Courier and by the nation of Val Verde. So there twenty movies that er, have probably made six or seven billion dollars, so don't talk to me about your Marvel universe, or your DC universe, you've got the Val Verde universe. (Rogue Commentary 22nd December 2020 - See: http://rogue-commentary.com/)
Stephen E. de Souza: Predator is set in Val Verde (Predator: The Complete History by Owen Williams 01 /01/ 2012)
Stephen E. de Souza: I was surprised to discover that Val Verde even has a Wikipedia page,"If that country existed, they’d build a statue of me! (Predator: The Complete History by Owen Williams 01 /01/ 2012)

d) See also:

Predator: Stephen E de Souza's Val Verde Universe of movies

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