Prey director teases secret new project after Predator: Killer of Killers and Predator: Badlands: "I sort of rushed two at once because I was so eager to get to the third thing"

Dan Trachtenberg has revealed why he "sort of rushed" making animated anthology Predator: Killer of Killers film and upcoming live-action feature Predator: Badlands at the same time – and now we're super intrigued about the future of the sci-fi franchise.

"After Prey came out, and I started thinking about sequel stuff, there were three ideas that I had. Killers is one, Badlands is two and the third one is something else," the filmmaker says in the new issue of SFX magazine, which features Star Trek: Strange New Worlds on the cover and hits newsstands on Wednesday, June 18. "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."

"There's a lot of cool ideas out there and none of them are just like, 'Oh, we have to say the next part of this story because it was successful.' All of it is like, 'Whoa, no one has done that in sci-fi . No one has done that in Predator. No one's done that with the creature,' all of those ideas are generated from that instinct. So, yeah, there is definitely a third thing that I'd love to get to when Badlands is finished."

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Released on Hulu in the US and Disney Plus in the UK on June 6, Predator: Killer of Killers sees a trio of strong-willed fighters from three very different time periods face off against the titular Yautja. It opens in 841 AD, where Ursa leads her Viking fleet on a bloodsoaked revenge mission, before cutting to feudal Japan, where ninja Kenji takes aim at his estranged samurai brother Kiyoshi. Next, we see World War II pilot John Torres take to the skies to defend his comrades from a seemingly invisible threat. Each story ties together in a way we won't spoil here, but Trachtenberg and co-director Joshua Wassung made sure to include an Easter egg that confirms Killer of Killers is canon when it comes to the wider Predator series.

As it stands, not all that much is known about Predator: Badlands, which will see the saga return to the realms of live-action upon its cinematic release on November 7. We do know, though, that it'll be led by Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi and Elle Fanning, who are playing an outcast Predator named Dek and a Weyland-Yutani robot named Thia respectively.

Given the Alien tie-in, fans have started to suspect that Tractenberg and 20th Century Studios are building towards an Alien vs. Predator project – a theory that was amplified by a recent teaser for new TV series Alien: Earth featuring a suspiciously Predator-sounding snarl.

While promoting Alien: Romulus, Fede Alvarez was asked by Deadline whether he'd be interested in developing an Alien vs. Predator movie, to which he replied with a grin: "I don't know, it depends on how well this does and if people want to still see that. I think, maybe, it's something I have to co-direct with my buddy Dan. Maybe we should do something like Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez did with From Dusk Till Dawn. We can do that; I direct one half, he directs the other." Very interesting...

Read about Predator: Badlands and more in the latest issue of SFX magazine, which will be available from Wednesday, June 18. Here's the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds cover you need to be looking out for on newsstands below...