While 2025 was stacked with a few very notable science fiction movies, it's hard to deny the staying power of Predator: Badlands, the third Predator film from director Dan Trachtenberg. After the success of 2022's Prey, 20th Century greenlit not one, but two more Predator projects from Trachtenberg: the animated anthology film Predator: Killer of Killers, and the live-action movie Predator: Badlands, which centered the titular alien hunter for the first time ever as the protagonist of its own story.
While both Prey and Killer of Killers released via streaming on Hulu, Badlands made the leap to the big screen. It has since become the highest-grossing Predator movie of all time, thanks in no small part to its inventive, one-of-a-kind story experience where audiences go along with fledgeling Yautja Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) and the Weyland-Yutani android Thia (Elle Fanning) for a hunt on the most dangerous planet in the galaxy.
This week Predator: Badlands released digitally, so you can now watch it from the comfort of your own home. And if you're buckling down for a rewatch (or first watch), then you'll want to get as much as you can out of it. If that sounds like you, then you'll want to read this interview, which dives deep into the creation of the unique and mesmerizing music for Predator: Badlands.
We spoke with Benjamin Wallfisch, who co-composed the alien score of Badlands alongside Prey composer Sarah Schachner, and he shared some fascinating insights. Wallfisch is a multi-award nominated musical mastermind who has worked on more than 75 films including Andy Muscietti's IT movies (as well as the IT: Welcome to Derry television show), Alien: Romulus, Blade Runner 2049 with Hans Zimmer, and many more. He first worked with Dan Trachtenberg on Predator: Killer of Killers, before making the leap to Badlands for a collaborative score with Schacner.
In December we shared the first half of our interview with Wallfisch, which dove into the terrifying details of scoring IT: Welcome to Derry. Now we're back with the rest, which explores Wallfisch's work on Predator: Badlands and Predator: Killer of Killers, as well as Alien: Romulus. You'd best bet we asked about a potential crossover, too.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
WINTER IS COMING: What was your experience like working on Predator: Badlands and working with Sarah Schachner? How did the two of you approach collaborating?
BENJAMIN WALLFISCH: It was one of those projects which we had to start with a completely open book, and given the incredible work that Sarah did on Prey, and I think the way that this movie...it's obviously such a completely unique story in the Predator universe, and the tone of it too, is pretty unique, the elements of humor, as well as all of the intense brutal action and all the rest of it, and real lore as well. We really get inside the Yautja customs, their heritage...there's so many levels to this movie.
I'd just come off doing Predator: Killer of Killers with Dan Trachtenberg, the animated anthology piece, which was a really amazing experience for me on so many levels, especially musically, because we had to kind of straddle basically four genres in the space of a single feature for each of the chapters. And that was such an intense musical challenge, but also just storytelling-wise, making sure that they linked together somehow so that they climaxed in the final piece. There was a lot that went into that and it was a great way to kind of get to know a filmmaker, and Dan's very unique and amazing approach to his storytelling, but also it's so inventive, and he's so daring and always trying to find new ways [to tell stories].
And Sarah's such an incredible artist. She has a very unique sound, that could only be her. And it was an interesting process because I really wanted to just have a very flexible and open approach to it and just see where it landed in a way. We both tried some different approaches, you know we were trying to really share the sonic approach, the production approach, but kind of bring our own sensibilities to that. And Sarah led the way in an incredible, brilliant way. I loved the whole band aspect, with all of us, with Dan, Ben [Rosenblatt] the producer, Sarah and myself just kind of jamming and finding our way through this very complex piece. And yeah, I can only commend Sarah for her work. It was amazing, what she did.
WiC: That's so fun that it was almost more of a band approach, I'm just envisioning you guys sitting in a studio bouncing ideas. And it fits, because Badlands, even more so than Killer of Killers or Prey, is really a fresh slate sonically because it's a totally alien culture, totally alien planets, and it's the first movie to put viewers into the shoes of the Predator. And the music does a lot of heavy lifting for that, because it sounds like nothing you've ever heard before. What are some of the ways that you tried to make the score of Badlands feel as alien as its premise?
BW: Well, the biggest thing was actually this idea that Dan had, I guess sort of about halfway through the process, maybe slightly more towards the end, of what would it sound like to have a Yautja choir? So that we're not just in the world of synths and orchestra and whatever we're going to do, we're actually a part of this culture, which they invented. The language that Dimitrius [Schuster-Koloamatangi] speaks in the movie is for me so musical, and so inspiring musically, the rhythm of it and the percussiveness and also, it feels so important to the tone of the film, his voice and the language itself. So why not bring them into the actual score as if there's part of the culture, is they sing in an almost ritualistic way?
And so we worked a lot with Dimitrius in a separate recording session to capture him singing in Yautja, doing rhythmic chants, rhythmic growls, grunts, all kinds of vocalizations. And that's all over the score, and it was a really fascinating thing just to kind of make it feel like it wasn't just music makers looking in, you know, it really came from inside the film outwards.
WiC: That's so cool. I did catch the Yautja in the score, but that's actually Dimitrius doing those lines?
BF: That's right.
WiC: I did want to branch out from Predator for a second, because you also did the music for Alien: Romulus, right? Did that play any role in you getting the gigs for these Predator movies, and were there any musical ideas in particular that you carried over from Romulus, since Badlands is a crossover film?
BW: Yeah, certainly the relationship with 20th Century, which came from the Alien movie was a big part of me having the chance to work on Predator for sure. And it was such an amazing thing to go from Alien to the Predator world in such a short space of time. Especially to Killer of Killers, which couldn't be more different from Romulus.
But of course, there's such an important sort of sense of thematic intensity which you have to capture when you're doing an Alien film...just in terms of what's expected in the score. And even though it's a totally different world, and especially in Killer of Killers where it's three completely independent timeframes, well four, including the finale...everything was different but that central, I guess, sort of thematic intent was definitely present, and some of the harmonies too. But I think all of that's quite subconscious because in Killer of Killers it was much more about, if I was referencing something, it was just little moments of [Alan] Silvestri here and there, just to kind of ground us in that lore.
But for Badlands it was a whole other thing because it was really important to be very collaborative, and also have a sense of, we're trying to break completely new ground. You know, this is a big risk, because of the storytelling, but it was executed with such brilliance by the filmmakers that as composers, I think all we had to do was just run with what Dan was doing and trust the boldness of it all, and bring whatever felt right
WiC: I would say you guys absolutely pulled it off. Badlands is a tremendous movie on so many levels, including the music. So something I didn't realize before prepping for this interview is that you're the only composer who has worked on movies for both the Alien and Predator franchises, not counting the AvP movies. You mentioned the milieus of Killer of Killers being very different because of the historical roots, but for Romulus and Badlands, what was the biggest difference in working on these two franchises?
BW: I mean, it's so different on so many levels. I would say certainly the musical choices in terms of the orchestration. Alien: Romulus, we really wanted to make it a journey from the very detailed, almost kind of Ravellian orchestration that you hear in the original [Jerry] Goldsmith score and later, obviously, the intense action, rhythmic elements of the James Horner Aliens score. And there's so much heritage there that I wanted to draw on, but do it in a completely fresh and unqiue way, so it really felt like from the very first moments of the score, we're saying to the audience, "It's okay, we've got you, we know what you're coming to see and what you expect to hear, but we're gonna bring you to somewhere completely different." And Fede [Álvarez's] structure that he wanted is this sort of hero's journey idea that we start in that world, and we very slowly start to build in a more electronic sensibility and it becomes really aggressively electronic as things get worse and worse for the main characters...and then we do a full circle back into the more orchestral sound, but with a much bigger scale and much more intense attitude.
It was truly just one of those challenges where I knew I needed a lot of time. I spent probably six months really developing a lot of the main themes, most which didn't make it into the film, funnily enough. But it was just the process of examining and trying and seeing what actually can stand up to a movie like that.
The other huge difference was when Fede first showed me the movie, he Insisted that I didn't hear a single note of the temp score. It was an incredible experience, it's only happened a few times. We screened it in a theater on the lot, and was it just completely without music. And I remember it was such an immaculately made movie, I walked out of there just stunned and I said to Fede, "Why do you need me, man? I think this works. Do you need score?"
And of course, that question was actually a really cool place to start from because we didn't just spot it thinking, "Well yeah, the temp sort of works. Why does it work?" Well, you know, sometimes you fall into that trap. I try not to, but that sometimes happens, and it's very much more about if we're gonna score this moment, like, what is its intention, that it otherwise could work without? And then once you start asking that question, it becomes a very structural conversation where you're using silence. And eventually those silences tend to get shorter and shorter and the score gets more and more prevalent...it's kind of much more of an exploration. And that's why it was really important to come to it from the point of view of having a lot of pre-written suites before I'd even seen the movie.
So contrasting that with Badlands, I mean, it is different on so many levels. I think the only thing that it has in common is the shared universe of Alien and Predator, even though of course the actual time frames of the two storylines are massively separated in time. And also the fact it was a collaborative project, there was just a really different approach to the development of the material, I think. Inevitably when you're doing a collaborative score, it's really important to sort of bring things to the table, but also just constantly have your ears open to what's coming in your direction and then just playing off that so it really feels like it's organically one journey, there's not like, clearly two different composers doing two different things. That's really important. And so the process was very different, of course.
And also the movies are very contrasted. We're following what should be the antagonist as protagonist, and we're rooting for him, and we're truly in a world which is completely fresh even though as fans of Predator, we want certain things to happen and we love these things that hit hard. But I think it was just such an extraordinary achievement that Dan and all the other filmmakers made, just within moments, throwing us into a completely fresh approach and doing it in a way where it brings all the fans along for the ride and all the people new to Predator into this world. And so musically...it's a kind of different impetus, I suppose.
WiC: Since you are the only person who's scored both Alien and Predator films, if you got the call to come back for a proper Alien vs. Predator movie, would you do it? And what would you be most excited about in terms of playing in that sandbox musically?
BW: I mean, of course I'd do it if I had that chance, that would be an amazing chance. Honestly, to answer the second part of the question, I have no idea. It would completely depend on the filmmaker, on the story. I always do my best to actually do the opposite of answering your question whenever I start a score, to come to a new movie with a completely open mind, a completely blank canvas, even if it is part of a franchise.
But I think it would be fascinating to try...if we don't refer to elements of the musical lore, really make that a conscious decision, and why? Like for example in Badlands, we don't reference Silvestri at all, we don't reference musically any of the previous scores. And that was very deliberate because it's such a fresh story. Whereas in Killer of Killers we did, because of its way it relates to the overall arc of the universe, especially at the end. So I don't know it's quite hard to say. I wouldn't want to sort of project into the future...but of course, yeah. I would jump at that chance.
An immense thank you to Benjamin Wallfisch for taking the time to stop by the site and discuss his work on Predator, Alien, and IT: Welcome to Derry.
Predator: Badlands is currently available to purchase or rent on digital platforms. It's slated for a physical Blu-ray release on February 17. Predator: Killer of Killers is available to stream on Hulu and Disney+, and Alien: Romulus is streaming on HBO Max.