Dan Trachtenberg says he wanted Predator: Badlands' connection to Alien to be "more elegant" than past universe movies, but that doesn't mean it won't "grow into a bigger thing"

Elle Fanning in Predator: Badlands — (Image credit: 20th Century Studios)

The Predator: Badlands trailers have been more about showcasing vibes and visuals over plot, but something we did learn from them a while back is that Elle Fanning's character Thia is a Weyland-Yutani synthetic. With that, and a glimpse at a Power Loader-type machine in a couple of promos, fans have been speculating whether it's secretly an Alien vs. Predator movie – or at the very least, setting one up...

Now, director Dan Trachtenberg has opened up on the franchises' connectivity, admitting that he wanted the link to be more subtle and less like "grabbing action figures and smashing them together."

"It was really just thinking of the VS movies; the Alien vs. Predators that came out very quickly around the same time, Freddy vs. Jason and whatever…" he recalls to GamesRadar+. "It just felt, to me, like there was a way to include things in cinematic universes that are already spiritually connected, and involve them in one story, in one movie. That's cooler than it being like, 'It's the big thing versus the big thing from the franchise!'"

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Also starring Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, Predator: Badlands follows Dek, a Yautja "runt" who travels to "the most dangerous planet in the universe" to take down a Kalisk, the galaxy's most formidable foe – and win back the respect of his clan. During his hunt, his path crosses that of Thia's, a legless bot whose perky personality rubs him up the wrong way. Before long, though, the two of them become unlikely allies, throwing the Yautja Codex – which claims the eponymous species is "friend to none" – out the spaceship window, as they set out to complete Dek's mission together.

"We just took Weyland-Yutani, we just took the synths, and we thought there was just something a little bit more elegant about that," adds Trachtenberg. "Maybe further down the line, it can grow into a bigger thing. But it's cooler, to me, that it's just these little different touch points that make it all feel like a connected universe. And if all of it is new to you, you don't need to have done any homework. It could just be a rad movie that makes sense on its own."

The filmmaker's suggestion that the crossover might "grow into a bigger things" is certainly intriguing, given Trachtenberg's earlier comments on the future of the sci-fi saga. "After Prey came out, and I started thinking about sequel stuff, there were three ideas that I had. [Predator: Killer of] Killers is one, Badlands is two and the third one is something else," he previously told SFX magazine. "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." We can't wait to see what he's cooking up behind the scenes...