Predator Badlands director explains how Steven Spielberg's Jaws and the video game Shadow of the Colossus influenced the upcoming sci-fi movie: "The Predator's gotta be badass and ferocious, but also sincere and have a pulse of its own"

Predator: Badlands director Dan Trachtenberg dishes on the pretty surprising pop culture influences behind the upcoming horror-sci-fi pic.

"Jaws is one of my favourite movies of all time. It's not my favourite horror movie. I don't consider Jaws a horror movie. But when it's scary, it's fucking terrifying. When it's funny, it's hilarious. When there's drama, it's incredibly sincere and authentic," Trachtenberg says in the new issue of SFX magazine, which features Predator: Badlands on the cover and hits newsstands on Wednesday, September 10. "And then when there's adventure, it's high-seafaring adventure. It's all things. It's not one thing. It is excellent at all things. So this movie, in this tone, the Predator's gotta be badass and ferocious and there's going to be this fun thing with Thia and that's gonna be funny, but also sincere and have a pulse of its own."

Trachtenberg also says the 2005 PS2 game Shadow of the Colossus inspired Badlands, namely the relationship between the characters Wander and Mono. In the game, Wander is a young man who journeys on horseback through an abandoned realm, attempting to revive Mono. His mission? To destroy the Colossi (sixteen massive beings) and bring Mono back to life.

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"This was a little bit inspired by that in terms of wanting to see the Predator with someone else, this kind of character with the opposite of him. 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."

Predator: Badlands, written and directed by Trachtenberg from a screenplay by Patrick Aison, takes place sometime far off in the future on a remote planet, and follows a young Predator named Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatang) who forms an unlikely relationship with a Weyland-Yutani android named Thia (Elle Fanning). The film marks the sixth edition in the Predator franchise, though it serves as its own standalone installment.

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Predator: Badlands releases on November 7. Read more in the latest issue of SFX magazine, which will be available from Wednesday, September 10. Here's the Predator: Badlands cover you need to be looking out for on newsstands below...