After a terrible October for theaters, Predator: Badlands is on the hunt for box office success this weekend. After helming Prey and Predator: Killer of Killers for Hulu, filmmaker Dan Trachtenberg is bringing the long-running sci-fi franchise back to the big screen...with a PG-13 rating.
That's opened the door to a much larger audience being able to watch the Yautja in action, and the 20th Century Studios action movie earned $4.8 million on Thursday. Now, it's right on track to meet those $25 million - $30 million opening weekend estimates.
If it remains on course, then Predator: Badlands will open above previous franchise reboots, Predators and The Predator. Aliens vs. Predator still has the biggest launch for a Predator movie at $38 million. Still, it obviously had the advantage of co-starring the Xenomorphs.
Predator: Badlands will have to contend with Die My Love, Nuremberg, Christy, and Sarah's Oil. Despite some of those movies featuring A-List talent like Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson, and Sydney Sweeney, none are expected to earn more than $5 million.
In a recent interview with The Direct (via SFFGazette.com), Trachtenberg revealed that he considered pitting the Yautja against Nazis in an earlier version of Predator: Badlands.
"The very first nugget of the idea was, what if the Predator wins? And I just really didn't want it to be a slasher movie where the slasher wins, I really wanted you to root for the guy, and then, in rooting for it, I was like, 'Well, I guess he could be, like, set in WWII, and he's kicking Nazi butt or something," he explained. "But even then, I felt like that's not really a special new movie."
"And then it became, wait a second, what if he's really the protagonist of his own story, and I get people to really root for him on his own journey, his own adventure," Trachtenberg concluded.
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 is now playing in movie theaters in IMAX, Dolby Cinema, Cinemark XD, 4DX, ScreenX, and premium screens everywhere.