"Predator: Badlands" Teaser Trailer: Elle Fanning Battles for Survival Alongside a Young Predator Warrior in This New Futuristic Standalone Movie From the Director of 'Prey'
Director Dan Trachtenberg returns to the Predator universe with an all-new, thrilling survival story set on a hostile alien planet.
Anyone who grew up in the 1980s loving gritty sci-fi action movies and Schwarzenegger films likely found themselves watching Predator multiple times, as it became one of the great staples of '80s bombastic blockbusters. The blend of relentless action, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s iconic one-liners (“Get to the Choppa!” “If it bleeds, we can kill it.”), and the introduction of an unforgettable extraterrestrial hunter cemented Predator as a defining film of its era. Surely, a movie like this, with so much fanfare and fandom around it, could foster a winning franchise. Well, the Predator franchise itself has been a tough go, with more misses than hits. Some recent attempts, like 2018’s The Predator, where they literally just made the creature larger and meaner, fumbled and never captured what truly made the original film so beloved by so many.
To be honest, we thought the franchise was all but dead when filmmaker Dan Trachtenberg (10 Cloverfield Lane) literally singlehandedly brought it back to life with his sleeper smash Prey. The film, which was released during the pandemic as a Hulu original, got to the essence of why a franchise like this could work so well. It’s about survival, grit, and the thrill of overcoming an obstacle so large that one might think it would be impossible to outlive. It also had a mean-ass alien predator with high-tech gadgets and doodads, all designed to kill whatever it’s hunting.
What was so fresh and thrilling about Prey was that it was set in the 1700s, centered around a young Comanche warrior, played by Amber Midthunder. It followed her plight as she came face to face with a highly skilled, ferocious alien predator. It wasn’t only a journey of self-preservation but also self-realization, understanding her own inner strength and fully embracing her role as a fierce protector of her own people.
Well, Trachtenberg is back with another standalone movie, Predator: Badlands, and this time he’s flipping his own formula. Instead of setting things in the past, it looks like Trachtenberg is taking audiences to the future on a distant, remote alien planet, where the main protagonist might be a young Predator warrior trying to survive in a very hostile and dangerous environment.
Elle Fanning also stars in the upcoming film, playing Thia, a human woman who becomes the young Predator’s unlikely ally as they both seem to need each other’s help to survive.
“You're hunting something ... that can't be killed,” Elle Fanning’s Thia remarks in the film's first official teaser trailer.
She might have crash-landed on the planet, stranded with this new Predator who appears to be more primitive than the others, yet still capable of incredible danger.
We could be wrong, but this feels like it could be an Enemy Mine situation, where two warring species—one human, one alien—must come together to survive the elements of a hostile planet. Then again, it's just a teaser, so it's hard to say.
Here’s what we do know: the Predator franchise is catching its second wind, raring to go with another round of carnage and hard survival—and we couldn’t be more excited and happy. It seems this franchise is as hard to kill as the Predator himself.
Dan Trachtenberg not only directs this new standalone movie but also co-wrote it with Patrick Aison. Meanwhile, Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, a New Zealand actor of Samoan & Tongan heritage, takes on the challenge of bringing this new young Predator warrior character to life.
There's another interesting tidbit: Predator: Badlands will not be a streaming exclusive, as it will be premiering in theaters on November 7th, including in the IMAX format.
Prior to that, however, Trachtenberg has also whipped up an original animated anthology Predator standalone film called Predator: Killer of Killers, which will stream exclusively on Hulu this summer, June 6th. No word if the two films will relate somehow.
Official Synopsis:
The director of Prey welcomes you to a world of hurt. Experience Predator: Badlands on the big screen, in theaters and IMAX November 7. “Predator: Badlands,” which stars Elle Fanning and Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, is set in the future on a remote planet, where a young Predator (Schuster-Koloamatangi), outcast from his clan, finds an unlikely ally in Thia (Fanning) and embarks on a treacherous journey in search of the ultimate adversary. The film is directed by Dan Trachtenberg and produced by John Davis, Dan Trachtenberg, Marc Toberoff, Ben Rosenblatt, Brent O’Connor.
Very excited for this - loved Prey and in general think most of the Predator standalones are a lot of fun. Did you catch that Thia's eyes go white, and they're stamped with the Weyland-Yutani logo, which is "the Company" from the Alien series? I smell a new crossover in the works! And Thia could be an android, not human. Either way, I'm in. And love that you have a substack about trailers.