Fans of the Predator franchise have much to be excited for when it comes to 2025, because the Yautja are going to be very busy. Fresh off of directing Prey for Hulu, which was pretty much universally deemed the best installment of the IP beside the 1987 original film, Dan Trachtenberg will be returning for Predator: Badlands. That film is scheduled for a November 7, 2025 release, but the calendar year will also house a separate, mysterious Predator movie, also helmed by Trachtenberg.
The director sat down with Empire Magazine and shed some light on just what his new live-action installment will be about. It will be far different from Prey, which functioned very much as both a one-off and a display of Amber Midthunder’s talent. Like the Robert Rodriguez-produced Predators, it will take place on an alien planet. And, unlike any other installment, it will feature a Yautja creature as the protagonist.
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In Trachtenberg’s words, “The creature is front and center, leading the charge. He’s still badass, but there’s something there that touches you emotionally, too. Creating a character you connect with, but are also super-intimidated by, has been challenging. But exciting.” He elaborated on his goal for the new entry, “[I wanted to push] the franchise’s boundaries, letting us root for a hero we rarely get to root for but in a different way. And that transformed into this big idea of rooting for the Predator.”
[Related: Secret Predator Movie Rumored to Be an Animated Anthology]
Even with the Yautja as the protagonist, it’s not as if Predator: Badlands will be utterly devoid of a human presence. Elle Fanning is the only performer billed on IMDb, but interestingly enough she is slated to play multiple characters. Specifically, two sisters moving through a wasteland.
Fanning has developed quite the impressive filmography since debuting in I Am Sam back in 2001, but few of her films have been action oriented. She had a role in Déjá Vu back in 2006, a major part in Super 8 in 2011, inhabited the role of Princess Aurora in two Maleficent movies, and had a supporting role in Ben Affleck’s Live by Night, but none of those roles really required much physicality of her. Her work in Predator: Badlands will be quite different, and it’s as exciting a project for Fanning fans as it is for Predator fans.
Even though it took place in the 1700s, Prey was actually a pretty straightforward Predator movie. It essentially had the same DNA as John McTiernan’s original masterpiece where a group of characters are in the wilderness (in this case, the Northern Great Plains), equipped with weaponry but weaponry that’s inferior to the mysterious threat they’re collectively facing. Before long, the group is whittled down to one individual, who then must take on the mysterious threat head-on.
It’s intriguing to wonder just how closely to that DNA Predator: Badlands will stick. It sounds like it will stray the furthest of any installment thus far, and that’s for the best. Predator fans feel safe in Trachtenberg’s arms because, while Prey showed that he could craft a remarkably solid Predator movie, it also showed that he could craft the most character-focused installment to date. The chances of him not retaining that character-focused element in Badlands are slim, and with a performer of Fanning’s caliber in the lead (well, co-lead), it’s one of 2025’s most hotly anticipated genre films.