Predator: Badlands director teases what could happen after that "awesome" and "ironic" ending: "It would be a whole lot of fun"

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

As the surprising ending of Predator: Badlands suggests, fans might be reuniting with Dek, Thia and Bud at some point in the future, and director Dan Trachtenberg recently teased that it would be "a whole lot of fun". If you still haven't seen the film, you should stop reading right now because we're going to discuss some spoilers.

The latest Predator installment follows a young Yautja named Dek (played by Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) going on his first hunt. Considered the clan's weakest link, he needs to prove himself, so he decides to travel to a remote and hostile planet to hunt an "unkillable" creature known as the Kalisk. On his journey, he finds two unlikely allies in a Weyland-Yutani synthetic android, Thia (played by Elle Fanning), and an adorable creature (later revealed as a baby Kalisk) known as Bud.

After being captured by a group of Weyland-Yutani synths and saved by Thia, Dek decides to return home without the Kalisk and ends up proving himself in a different (and equally violent) way. At the end of Badlands, Dek kills his father, and decides to abandon his clan. Instead, he forms a new family with Thia and Bud, who decide to embark on a journey together. Before that, though, a new ship lands on Yautja Prime, and, in the very last line of the movie, Dek reveals that it's his mother.

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Mireia is a UK-based culture journalist and critic. She previously worked as Deputy Movies Editor at Digital Spy, and her work as a freelance writer has appeared in WeLoveCinema and Spanish magazines Fotogramas, Esquire, and Elle. She is also a published author, having written a book about Studio Ghibli's 'Kiki's Delivery Service' in 2023. Talking about anime and musicals is the best way to grab her attention.