Predator: Badlands arrives in theaters this Friday, but many fans already have one eye on the future. Filmmaker Dan Trachtenberg previously helmed Prey and teased the return of the movie's lead, Naru, along with Arnold Schwarzenegger's Dutch, at the end of the animated Predator: Killer of Killers.
While we may eventually get a team-up featuring various characters from the Predator franchise, it seems the current idea is for a new Alien vs. Predator movie (Badlands somewhat sets the stage for that with the presence of Weyland-Yutani).
Talking to ComicBook.com (via SFFGazette.com), Trachtenberg was asked about his endgame. "In my mind, what made Avengers work was that it wasn’t the first MCU movie and it wasn’t the second MCU movie," he shared. "That we had spent time bonding with characters and their individual stories and making sure that those individual movies were cool and had interesting premises unto themselves."
"So if we were to ever do something where things collide, it would be after we’ve gotten to know and bonded with things in their own individual stories."
When the site pointed out that many fans call him the "Kevin Feige" of the Predator franchise, Trachtenberg replied, "I take that as a compliment because I think Kevin Feige is a genius and what he created is unprecedented in the history of cinema. I’ve just made a couple of good Predator movies so far, and hoping for a third. We’ll see how that turns out."
In a separate conversation with ScreenTime, Trachtenberg revealed that his original plan for Predator: Badlands was for Amber Midthunder to reprise her Prey role as Naru. That means she would have fought alongside the Yautja Dek in place of Elle Fanning's Weyland-Yutani synthetic, Thia.
"I did think about the pairing of [Amber Midthunder's Naru and Dek] before it was Thia," he told the site. "But then I thought, 'Well, now then I'm not doing the premise.' And I really wanted to do the premise of the Predator as the protagonist, and no humans in the movie. And so it became further down the line we can do some cooler things, maybe [with Naru]."
Only time will tell what becomes of the Predator franchise, and much is likely riding on how much of a success Badlands is when it opens later this week. Prey and Predator: Killer of Killers bypassed theaters for a streaming release on Hulu, so the movie will be a big test for this current iteration of the long-running sci-fi series.
We still don't have opening weekend estimates, though a recent report pointed to Predator: Badlands being a box office hit.
Predator: Badlands, which stars Elle Fanning and Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, is set in the future on a remote planet, where a young Predator (Schuster-Koloamatangi), outcast from his clan, finds an unlikely ally in Thia (Fanning) and embarks on a treacherous journey in search of the ultimate adversary.
Dan Trachtenberg directs and produces Predator: Badlands alongside John Davis, Marc Toberoff, Ben Rosenblatt, and Brent O’Connor.
Predator: Badlands opens exclusively in movie theaters on November 7 in IMAX, Dolby Cinema, Cinemark XD, 4DX, ScreenX, and premium screens everywhere.