Predator: Badlands is less than two months away now, and we're eagerly anticipating what Prey director Dan Trachtenberg has cooked up for us. We recently had our appetites whetted with animated anthology flick Predator: Killer of Killers – which we gave the big five stars to in our review – and now we're hungry for more Yautja... fun?
"There's nothing like a laugh amidst all of the intensity and violence and all that stuff," the director teased to SFX magazine a few weeks ago, promising a lighter Predator flick than fans are used to. "So I love when there's comedy in an action thing. I don't respond when something is just pure comedy, for whatever reason, I don't often fall. So it was a joy to make a movie like this where I get to embrace the kind of things that I like in action movies."
As it stands, there's not all that much else out there about the film just yet, but that hasn't stopped us from hunting down any detail we could find on the internet about the otherworldly thriller. If it reads, we can bill it... From cast and plot to teasers and what's next for the series, scroll on to find out all we know so far about Predator: Badlands.
Predator: Badlands release date
Predator: Badlands is due out in UK and US theaters on November 7. It will be the second Predator movie to come out in 2025, following the release of Dan Trachtenberg and co-director Joshua Wassung's animated feature Predator: Killer of Killers in June.
Filming kicked off in New Zealand on August 27, 2024 and concluded in late October. Trachtenberg once stated that every single shot of the film features VFX work, which explains why its release date is over a year out from the wrapping of principal photography.
Predator: Badlands trailer
The first full trailer for Predator: Badlands landed online on July 21 – though it keeps its cards relatively close to its armored chest, just like the previous teaser.
It boasts a surprisingly upbeat tone, as Elle Fanning's Weyland-Yutani robot Thia teases exiled Yautja Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi), who's hellbent on killing the "ultimate adversary" and proving himself to his kind.
The first shot is interesting, in particular, depicting Thia linked up to a MU/TH/UR mainframe with the signature '062578'. In the original Alien movie, the ship's AI was MU/TH/UR 6000... Does this mean Predator: Badlands is set way after the first Alien film? Or way before?
Later, we see Dek go up against winged beasts, foes with powerful tentacles, and a giant, furry creature. "Here, you're not the predator. You're the prey," Thia warns him, to which he angrily replies in his native language: "I am prey to none!"
Stay tuned right until the very end to catch a glimpse of a machine that's reminiscent of the powerloader Sigourney Weaver's Ripley fought the xenomorph Queen with in Aliens.
Predator: Badlands cast
With less than two months to go until its release, the only two cast members that have been confirmed for Predator: Badlands are Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi and Elle Fanning. The former is set to play Dek, a young Yautja outcast who's hellbent on proving himself to his clan, while the latter is on board as artificial human Thia.
"I've made the comparison that it's like Chewbacca and C-3PO: The Movie. But C-3PO is the nervous Nellie; the fun of Thia is that she is really unflappable," director Dan Trachtenberg previously told SFX magazine. "She is positive under any circumstance. [She's] a really fun character to be stuck with a Predator, a Yautja that is a real hard-ass and doesn't really want to talk too much, and is more like Clint Eastwood or Mad Max, or Conan even. So they're made for a really fun pairing and something that we haven't seen in Predator, but also in the Alien franchise."
We imagine that more actors will be announced closer to its premiere, since the official trailer above didn't reveal any additional faces. We'll be sure to keep you posted!
Predator: Badlands plot
In previous Predator films, the Yautja have been villainous figures who terrorize our (more) human heroes, but Predator: Badlands will shake things up by centering the titular creature as its protagonist.
While we haven't got specifics yet, we know that the movie will partly take place on Yautja Prime, the Predators' homeworld, which made its onscreen debut in Predator: Killer of Killers, and see lead character Dek align himself with a Weyland-Yutani bot named Thia after he's cast out from his tribe. Together, the twosome set out on a treacherous journey to take on the most fearsome enemy – and prove Dek as an ultimate hunter.
"This was a little bit inspired by [Shadow of the Colossus] in terms of wanting to see the Predator with someone else, this kind of character with the opposite of him," Trachtenberg explained to SFX. "He's very laconic. She is not. She's capable in ways that he is not. But also physically, she's got a real thing that I'm so excited for you guys to see."
Released on PlayStation 2 in 2005, Shadow of the Colossus follows Wander, a young man who traverses through a desolate land on horseback, in the hope of reviving a young girl named Mono. To do so, he must defeat the colossi, sixteen massive beings spread out across the forbidden wasteland.
Given Thia's manufacturer being Weyland-Yutani and some Alien easter eggs already on display (and a blink-and-you'll-miss-it glimpse at what looks like a Xenomorph skull in the teaser), many have been speculating as to how much the film will crossover with the Alien franchise – a theory amplified by the fact that one specific trailer for the upcoming series Alien: Earth features a very Predator-sounding snarl.
During the movie's panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2025, Trachtenberg explained that while there will be connections between the two franchises, they will be "elegantly" incorporated, so as not to detract from the Predator being the main focus this time around.
"I think sometimes people who are dabbling in cinematic universes, there's a seduction to grab all the action figures and smush them together. And I really didn't want to do that, and really wanted to make sure that if we ever do something, it would be a little bit more elegant," he said.
However, when asked back in ??? whether he'd seen any of the Hulu/Disney Plus show yet, Trachtenberg replied with a grin: "Mmm. What a question. I have seen some Alien: Earth and it's pretty effing awesome what I've seen." Consider us suspicious...
What's next for the Predator franchise?
So, once Predator: Badlands comes out, what comes next? If things were up to Trachtenberg, another movie... though he's keeping coy on what that movie would look like exactly.
"After Prey came out, and I started thinking about sequel stuff, there were three ideas that I had. Killers is one, Badlands is two, and the third one is... something else," the filmmaker tells SFX magazine in its latest issue. "The reason why I felt possessed to make them and sort of why I rushed – I did two at once because I could do, I could multitask with animation – was because I was so eager to get to the third thing.
"There's a lot of cool ideas out there and none of them are just like, 'Oh, we have to say the next part of this story because it was successful,'" he continues. "All of it is like, 'Whoa, no one has done that in sci-fi. No one has done that in Predator. No one's done that with the creature,' all of those ideas are generated from that instinct. So, yeah, there is definitely a third thing that I'd love to get to when Badlands is finished." We're already excited.
For more, check out our guide to the most exciting upcoming movies heading our way.
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