New Predator Film Badlands Will Explore Predator Culture Deeply

Once in a blue moon, a new live-action Predator movie arrives — and, still rarer, one that recasts the alien killing machine as the hero. Yet, today, 20th Century Studios has given fans just that with the first teaser trailer for Predator: Badlands, a new take on the sci-fi slasher franchise that promises to be outlandish and original.

Predator: Badlands features Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi as Dek, a young Predator, or ‘prized hunter’ among his kind, who is cast out and has to win back his honor. He’s hardly the typical emotionless monster that comes to mind for die-hard Predator fans: He’s a hero who’s set to team up with an out-of-place female Weyland-Yutani android played by Elle Fanning. The unlikely duo is pitted against, as the trailer dubs it, “the ultimate adversary,” and the monster in question is “one that can’t be killed.” The fast-paced teaser shows the “unstoppable beast” in a few brief moments, and it seems to be a massive monster unlike any others we’ve seen before in the Predator or Alien franchise.

Teaser Trailer Is All About Worldbuilding

Badlands will be part of the cross-franchise Predator/Alien universe, but should work as a standalone movie even for newcomers. Nevertheless, its first trailer suggests that it will engage in a bit of heavy worldbuilding, including adding details to lore that have been left untouched by the previous live-action films in the Predator universe. One of the rumors doing the rounds online is that part of the story takes place in the Predator home world — a concept that has existed but never been explored to any great degree by the franchise until now.

Supporting the idea, the first teaser shows a few quick glimpses of the otherworldly jungle landscape, a few busy Predator outposts, and several Predators, both at a standoff of some sort or in full-on combat with one another. The direction and editing style also suggest that we may finally get to know more about the Yautja language, culture, social order, and norms.

Dan Trachtenberg — the Oscar-nominated director of the 2022 breakout film Prey, which was set in the 18th-century American Great Plains in a stripped-back take on the film series — has also co-written the Badlands script with Patrick Aison, and it seems he’s ready to make Predator a full-fledged part of the wider franchise. Prey delivered a slow-burning hunter vs. hunted thrill ride where the audience gets to know the warrior character Makowa much better, and a sequel would be a welcome addition to a franchise that’s almost exclusively stuck to human characters.

Predator vs. Alien Monster… What Else? Elles Fanning’s Character Is a Curveball

Speaking of Trachtenberg, his return is undoubtedly a good sign. Not only did Prey win him critical acclaim and won over fans for taking a franchise past its best-known installments, but it also found a wide audience on Hulu, gaining additional traction from word-of-mouth in what is widely considered one of the best Predator movies of all time. Trachtenberg also brought the franchise back in a way that feels current but true to the spirit of the sci-fi classic.

Additionally, Trachtenberg is working on another Predator project: A series called Predator: Killer of Killers. It’s an animated anthology series that will be premiering on Hulu — the same service that had a major role in the success of Prey — on June 6 this year. Each episode will feature a different Predator and hunts set in different periods and geographies.

One of the main characters on display in the new teaser trailer is Elle Fanning’s android character, Thia. She’s on screen almost as much as Dek is in the trailer, and it’s easy to see why: Fanning’s movements are incredibly precise and unnatural, almost inhuman, and her tone of voice and cadence feel almost sinister, with just a hint of curiosity and care seeping through her cold, metallic body language. The character is new to the Predator universe — it’s the first time a movie in the series pairs the alien hunters with a human-created robot. Weyland-Yutani may well be a big nod to fans of the Alien franchise, but it’s also new ground in the Predator-verse.

What the Teaser Trailer Shows

The first teaser is short on revealing the arc of the story, but does well in what it needs to do: Showing brief cuts of the most iconic pieces of the film. In that sense, there’s a lot to analyze: Shots of the Predators in their ceremonial armor, both during peaceful interactions, but also in an all-out fight to the death, Dek exploring, running and fighting on unfamiliar grounds, Fanning’s Thia with her gun and her sword and fast glimpses of the “unkillable” ultimate adversary. The jungle is sprawling and otherworldly, indicating the size of the whole set.

A key takeaway, though, is that Badlands is a different approach to the Predator formula than previous films. The narrative perspective isn’t from the human prey in the crosshairs; it’s the Predator himself who’s outcast, has to prove himself, and make it through the most impossible fight of his life. If that is the path Dek is on in the film, it could pave the way for fresh and complex character development and interesting shades of moral ambiguity to the genre’s traditionally straightforward good vs. evil play.