Although a Predator: Badlands sequel has yet to be announced, the movie's final scenes definitely leave the door open for a follow-up by teasing the introduction of a character who represents a first for the Predator franchise.
If you haven't watched Badlands yet, major spoiler follow.
After dispatching Tessa and her Weyland-Yutani synth crew, Dek, Thia and Bud make their way to Yautja Prime, where the young warrior faces his father in single combat. Despite Njohrr using every dirty trick in the book, his "runt" son prevails and earns his cloak, as a now much bigger Bud puts the Yautja leader down for good by biting his head off.
At this point, the screen fades to black for the title, but we instantly return to Yautja Prime, as Dek and his new clan watch a fleet of ships approaching in the distance. Thia asks who could be leading them, to which Dek replies: "It's my mother."
Though we have seen female Predators in the comics and possibly the animated Killer of Killers movie (they weren't featured, but there must have been a few ladies in that massive crowd), they have yet to appear in live-action. We don't actually get to see Dek's mother, but something tells us she won't be congratulating her son on his victory!
During an interview with Variety, director Dan Trachtenberg touched on the ending and what the introduction of Dek's mother could mean for a potential sequel.
"What I love about that ending is that it works as a final twist on the story that we’ve just been seeing, but also sets up an expectation for something that I think is pretty groovy. If I were to go forward, I don’t think that would be the whole reason, but that would be a very cool element to include.
What’s so great is we now have all these interesting characters, and who knows what the next one is? I didn’t know the next one was going to be “Killer of Killers” or Dek’s story, and then it ended up we doing both at the same time. There’s many open doors to walk through next, that’s for sure."
Some expanded universe material describes female Yautja (Yautjas?) as being more dominant and aggressive than males, so it'll be interesting to see if a potential Badlands sequel takes a similar approach.
As for where things stand with another movie, Trachtenberg does have an idea of where he'd like to take the story next, but makes it clear that plans could always change.
"It can all go out the door once we start putting pen to paper on stuff, but I’ve looked as far as I could to feel comfortable about what I’m doing. Every movie is a complete thought, not that much unlike the early Marvel stuff before the first Avengers movie, where it’s like, those are great movies, and lo and behold, we’re actually setting up that things could come together in a delicious way. But they weren’t like, 'See how everything’s interconnected like crazy all of a sudden!' So I’m trying to learn that lesson and make sure that any of these movies that we do are awesome ideas for movies on their own."
Predator: Badlands is helmed by returning director Dan Trachtenberg (Prey, 10 Cloverfield Lane) and marks the franchise’s highly anticipated return to the big screen with a story that expands and redefines the Predator Universe.
Set in the future on a deadly remote planet, Badlands follows a young Predator outcast (played by newcomer Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) who finds an unlikely ally in Thia (Emmy and Golden Globe nominee Elle Fanning) as he embarks on a treacherous journey in search of the ultimate adversary.
Produced by John Davis, Dan Trachtenberg, Marc Toberoff, Ben Rosenblatt and Brent O’Connor, Predator: Badlands opens exclusively in movie theaters on November 7 in IMAX, Dolby Cinema, RealD (3D), Cinemark XD, 4DX, ScreenX and premium screens everywhere.