Alan Ritchson got an “81” tattoo before War Machine had even been fully set up. His makeup artist has been covering it every day on set since.
That detail says something about how the actor approached the role. Ritchson plays a Staff Sergeant known only by his callsign, leading a squad of Army Ranger candidates through a final Death March test in the wilderness — until a passing asteroid deposits a killer alien robot into their path. The soldiers are hunted. The mech has guns and lasers. Nobody asked for this.
“The big hook for me was just the amount of heart that this movie had,” Ritchson tells the outlet. “The spirit of who this character was and his journey was something I related to so much. I want the persevering spirit that ’81’ has to be something I’m reminded of constantly.”
The film arrives on Netflix on March 6, directed by Australian filmmaker Patrick Hughes, whose previous credits include The Expendables 3 and The Hitman’s Bodyguard. The ensemble cast also features Dennis Quaid, Esai Morales, Stephan James, and Jai Courtney.
Shooting Like a Horror Film
Hughes made a deliberate creative decision early: film it like a horror movie. The production shot on location across Australia and New Zealand, leaning into real terrain rather than controlled studio environments.
“Patrick came right out and said we’re going to shoot this like a horror movie on location in these beautiful, real places around Australia and New Zealand, and it’s going to be like nothing else we’ve ever seen,” Ritchson says. For an actor already known for physically demanding work, the shoot still pushed past familiar limits. “I’ve done a lot of physical roles, but it took everything to the next level.”
Hughes, who co-wrote the screenplay with James Beaufort, describes the film’s DNA as a deliberate layering of genres. Westerns came first. His father introduced him to them, and the influence stuck. “There’s a touch of Pale Rider in there,” he says. “It’s the man with no name. The drifting angel archetype.” From there, the film pulls toward Deliverance — survival stripped of comfort.
Where the Horror Logic Enters
The survival framework made the horror influence unavoidable, according to Hughes. “I personally feel like you can’t make a survival film without ultimately leaning into horror,” he says. The alien antagonist — a marauding mechanized threat — functions less like a conventional action-movie villain and more like something that cannot be reasoned with or outrun easily.
The Predator comparison will be made. Hughes and Ritchson seem prepared for it. The film doesn’t claim to reinvent the format, but operates instead on execution — cast investment, location texture, and a genre blend that uses western fatalism to ground what could otherwise be a straightforward creature feature.
Ritchson, who built his profile through Reacher on Amazon Prime Video, is carrying a project that asks him to be both physical force and emotional anchor. The tattoo, covered in makeup each morning, is still there underneath.
Photo by Holly Landkammer on Unsplash
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