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We're still a little ways off seeing the next big screen Predator movie, with the sequel to 2022's Prey, Predator: Badlands, not landing in theaters until November 2025. Fans won't have to wait too long, however, before they see the universe's greatest hunter back in action thanks to a new animated movie, Predator: Killer of Killers, which is headed to Disney Plus and Hulu on June 6.
The film, which was made at the same time as Predator: Badlands, is an anthology film that tells three very different – but connected – tales of humans coming up against the Predator in different settings and time periods, including World War II, Edo Japan and Viking times. SFX attended a special screening of footage from Killer of Killers at the Walt Disney Studios in Hollywood recently and spoke, along with select other media, to director Dan Trachtenberg to find out more.
DAN TRACHTENBERG: Just to go back in time a little bit to when I was asked about the sequel [to Prey], and what would I do. Thankfully I had, I think, three very cool ideas. One of them, the first one, the one I was the most excited about at the time was Badlands. But then there was this other thing that was like, "Yeah, Prey was really cool. We got to put the Predator in this different time period and tell that story."
I think the thing that made Prey special, though, wasn't just Predator in a different time period. It's that the story we were telling was made better by the story of the Predator, and I didn't want to just throw them into a different time period. I really wanted to figure out, if we were to do that kind of thing again, how it could be special and what kind of story we could tell that could be equally badass and awesome, but also emotional and thematically character oriented.
So, thinking about the different time periods, I honed in on the idea of what if we made an animated movie where we could express ourselves in a way that we don't get to see. We've now had all these Predator movies and we're doing this one [Predator: Badlands] that's crazy different. But still, with all that stuff, the other side of the coin that I love in Predator movies, is that hard-R, crazy carnage. Wouldn't it be cool to see that in a different medium? So we made this movie, Killer of Killers, at the exact same time – stupidly, but awesomely – and it is an anthology movie...
What was your inspiration for the Japanese part of the film? Did you watch samurai movies?
I mean, I grew up watching all that stuff. There wasn't any one specific movie that was the reference point for it. All three of them, part of it came from [figuring out] who would be a really unique challenge for the Predator and then it became [choosing] what time periods would allow for a really cool story to be told. The Japan-set story is not only emotionally charged [like the Viking story] but also told in a very unique way.
The animation looks a lot like Arcane on Netflix. Is it the same studio or just a similar art style?
Definitely an inspiration. Some people that worked on Arcane worked on it. There's a whole host of studios that worked on the movie. Part of the inspiration for making it too was my relationship with The Third Floor, they've done a lot of work on a lot of movies that you loved, but have never done a full feature. I have a great relationship with one of the founding members, Josh Wasson, who became a co-director of this movie.
Directing live action is so different from directing animation. What lessons did you take from live action to animation and which ones did you bring back the other way?
It's so funny, the only animated thing I'd done before this was a cinematic for a video game called Warframe. I was so struck by how with animation, on the one hand you can do anything, but also you're just as limited as in live action, because the number of sets that you have costs money, [and] the number of characters you have. At a certain point you have to lock because they have to become final. It's like, "I thought we could just keep on making cool things?!"
The process is a little bit different and then it's so front-loaded. You do so much work as you go in the beginning and then what's delicious is the end of the process, when you've locked the story, everything is the right thing, and then you get to see the shots get cooler and cooler. Visual effects in movies, sometimes it's like it gets worse before it gets better. Animation is sort of the opposite, so there is a freedom to it.
The fun thing about this was trying to do two things at once, which is on the one hand I really wanted to shoot it the way that I would do a live action movie, so that it felt cinematic and from my voice or whatever. But also it was like,"'We should embrace the medium and do things that you can't do otherwise."
What I realised when I got to the end of this process was how much this gets to be for 12 year olds. It's for everyone, but when I was 12 and I saw Akira for the first time, I was like, "What the f**k? What did I just see? I can't believe a movie could be like that." And also just the visceral nature of it. At a sleepover everyone will be like, "Can you believe this crazy thing that we saw?!"
But also in it is all the same stuff that fueled me making Prey. I'm very driven by characters who are trying to break a cycle and most of the characters in Killer of Killers are really dealing with generational stuff and they're all different. All the chapters are different genre-wise. Some are more fun than the others. The Viking one has some fun to it, I guess, but it's also pretty intense.
Why on Earth did you decide to make two films at the same time?
It was just too tantalising. And also when we're developing, you don't know if we're gonna get the green light for that one or get the green light for this one. You've got to make it as though it's the only one [green lit]. Also, when I did that other animated project, I was doing it at the same time I was doing The Boys and I realised with animation I can do double duty. I was able to be remote and doing that stuff.
This was like a game of hopscotch. We were writing the script for Killer of Killers while we were pre-vizing stuff on Badlands, and then we were able to do a whole lot more than we thought because we were delayed getting to New Zealand to shoot Badlands. So I was here for a huge portion of the early stages of Killer of Killers.
Then in New Zealand we would wake up early on the way to the location to shoot. We would be remote with everyone back here and seeing shots thanks to Starlink we'd be able to be in very remote locations and still have internet. We may all have cancer now because we were in a van that was covered in all those satellites and stuff, but all of it has been worth it for the art.
Do you have more animated things in mind?
Certainly. I'm sure you see cool movies and are like, "Oh, wouldn't it be cool if…?" That doesn't turn off for me, so tons of cool things. We'll see if we get to make them. I guess people have to like it!
I guess the thing that we're always trying to say is it's not made like it feels like it's just act one of something larger. I think it's what we all mean when we say, "We've got to make it as if it's the only one." You don't want to feel like you're short changed by the experience and it was incomplete. These are very much for me. I won't sleep at night if I don't feel like I really communicated all that I wanted to with both of these movies.
If you picked up on the way the trailer was cut for Killer of Killers, there's a lot of match cuts, like characters handing over, right? The movie is very much about the connection between the characters as much as the stories themselves.
This was always a feature, and never a series?
Always a feature.
So there's a throughline in the narrative?
That was the big "Aha!" that my co-director Josh came to me [with]. I was like, "It would be cool to do this stuff in different time periods, but I love the people I collaborate with at the studio and TV is a different thing." I was like, "I wanna do it with them." And then he was like, "What about an anthology movie?" I was like, "Oh yeah…" And there's different kinds of anthology movies, you know?
Predator: Killer of Killers will be available on Hulu in the US and Disney Plus in the UK on June 6. Predator: Badlands is currently set for a 7 November theatrical release date worldwide.
For more, check out our guides to the best Hulu shows and the best Hulu movies to stream now.
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