When is an anthology film no longer an anthology film? An odd question, sure, but one that's worth asking following the release of Predator: Killer of Killers.
You see, while the animated Predator spin-off may tell three separate stories from three wildly different time periods, they are all connected both thematically and literally. To say too much more would be a spoiler, but just know that, once the third segment finishes, do not turn off your television because there's a lot more to come.
For director Dan Trachtenberg, who previously helmed the Predator prequel Prey, interlinking the stories was key to making Killer of Killers feel like a "full meal" rather than a TV show. However, doing the movie in the first place took Trachtenberg some convincing. "It was [because I did] not want to do the next movie in a time period," he tells GamesRadar+.
The filmmaker struggled with the idea of retreading Prey, which centred on a Comanche woman taking on the galaxy's deadliest hunter, just in a different time period. However, during a discussion with his co-director, Josh Wassung, one of the founders of previsualisation and animation company The Third Floor, the idea for an anthology movie was pitched, which led Trachtenberg to another question: "I was like, 'But is that special?'"
"Dan really wanted to surprise fans with not just one new historical era but three," Wassung says. "He was struggling with, 'I don't know if we should make a series or how we should approach it.' I just felt like we should just weave them together. That could be metaphoric, but there could also be a fun, surprising way for them to connect."
"The special came with the idea – very different from how it shows up in the movie – but for the interstitials," Trachtenberg says, referring to the chapter titles given to each of the three stories. The first, 'The Shield,' centres on a vengeful Viking warrior and her son, while the second, 'The Sword,' focuses on a ninja rejected by his Samurai brother. The third, 'The Bullet,' tells the story of a Second World War pilot. "Then, of course, there's how that all culminates, and that was [the moment], now we have to make this movie," Trachtenberg continues. "Then we pitched it to the studio, and that, to me, is what makes it really a movie, a real full meal that is actually one story being told, not three."
To help bring the stories even closer together, Trachtenberg and Wassung decided that, unlike other anthology TV series like Star Wars: Visions, each one would have the same animation style. "That was part of the original idea and weaving them into a single movie," Wassung explains. "Because the cultures are so different and they're hundreds of years apart, we felt that it was important to connect them both metaphorically through their character arcs, but also through a cohesive painterly design, because that way we can lean into the respective cultures. The frozen Nordic area, Japan in the 1600s, they were each unique in their own rights. We wanted to make sure that there were artistic elements that were continuous throughout."
Predator: Killer of Killers is available on Hulu and Disney Plus from June 6.
You can fill out your watchlist with our guide to the best shows on Disney Plus or the most exciting upcoming shows of the year.
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