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This weekend, we were given a new look into the world of the Predator by way of a bloody brilliant animated entry, Predator: Killer of Killers. Pitting the legendary space hunters against a Viking, a ninja, and a WWII pilot, minds were blown by the end of the story when two massive twists were thrown into proving this was more than just a story about the hunter and the hunted. For those that haven't seen it yet, do so now to avoid incoming spoilers that we'll need more than mud and dirt to cover up.
After making our way through what we thought was an excellent anthology, it turned out that all of our victors against different members of the Yautja race were forced to fight side by side. But how could that be given their battles were centuries apart? Well, it's all a simple add-on of the captives being put in a cryogenic stasis, as was further explained by co-director and Prey helmer, Dan Trachtenberg.
Speaking to Screen Rant about the mechanics behind this amazing twist, Trachtenberg explained, "I mean, I'll clearly say it is not time travel. They are not time-travelling. That is the benefit of the cryo pod - they are plucked from their time period and then put into stasis and then unleashed when decided upon for that evening's delightful entertainment."
One person that was revealed to be in deep freeze at the end of the film, however, was none other than Amber Midthunder's Naru from the surprise hit, Prey, who the Yautja revisited during the credits scene of her live-action movie. The big reveal certainly tees up some wild possibilities, with the crossover suggesting that characters from either film could appear in different forms, depending on how well Killer of Killers does. "We never know. It could be exciting to see animated characters show up in live action or live action characters show up in animation, and all that kind of thing is really fun if people respond to it."
Where that could take us is unknown. Things ended on an interesting cliffhanger with Kenji (Louis Ozawa) and Torres (Rick Gonzalez) managing to escape their fight to the death, only for a squad of Predator ships to come trailing after them at the orders of the top Predator, aka the Grendel King. This big fella, besides being a terrifying ruler, was brandishing some interesting attire in the form of a cape laced with what were shockingly similar to the tails of dead xenomorphs from the Alien franchise. It's a wardrobe choice that co-director Joshua Wassung was careful to note.
"I would say the fans should interpret that the way they want to interpret it," Wassung explained. "I mean, we wanted to design that Predator with a regal elegance mixed with brutality. And that's what spoke to us about that. And we honestly were having fun imagining where they might've come from." Of course, just like the pistol in Predator 2 that started it all, Wassung is left to leave these questions unanswered. "We really wanted to leave it to the fans to imagine where each of those skeletons and pieces of various creatures that he clearly has conquered and where they might've come from,"
We may see a clearer crossover come to pass through Trachtenberg's live-action effort, Predator: Badlands, which is set for release in theaters on November 7, 2025. While we wait, why not dare to make contact with things we absolutely shouldn't and check out our list of the best sci-fi horror films here.
