Now that director Dan Trachtenberg’s Predator: Badlands has become such a roaring success, earning glowing reviews, performing well in theaters, and breaking streaming records on Hulu, it isn’t difficult to see the sci-fi action sequel as a total slam-dunk. However, to do so would be to miss just how gonzo and ambitious the film truly is. This is, after all, the eighth installment in what is essentially a long-running science-fiction slasher franchise, and it’s one that Disney and 20th Century Studios opted to give the largest budget of any film in the series thus far. It could have been a total disaster in so many different ways, but the film manages to balance its monstrous ambition with refined craft in superb style, all while juggling a bunch of different tones as well.
But to hear Trachtenberg tell it, there were a few times that he and his editing team were sweating as they tried to get things calibrated just right in that regard, especially when it came to one new character: Bud.
Bud is a little blue alien creature that the primary Yautja, Dek, encounters on his trial-and-tribulation-filled journey across the planet Genna. As the film sets up early on, everything on Genna is extremely dangerous, especially the central creature that Dek has been sent there to hunt down and kill, the Kalisk. Everything that Dek encounters on the planet for the first act of Predator: Badlands lives up to that general description, attempting to kill him in one grisly way or another. But then, he meets Bud; an unexpectedly cute alien who bears far more resemblance to a faithful otherworldly dog than he does a hardened killer. This goes a long way toward subverting established expectations, and actually plants a seed for an even bigger ultimate reveal about the character later on. It was a risk Trachtenberg and his team were eager to take, but one that they grew a bit trepidatious about in the editing process.
As Trachtenberg told Empire in a recent interview, “We loved the concoction. It was like ‘How cool is it that you have something that you would only see in a Disney movie, in something like this, that brings this whole other side out of it, but also is super-badass and funny and charming and heartfelt, but still with an edge?’ I thought it was so cool.”
However, he goes on to recount a late-in-the-game concern regarding Bud and his presence. “One day, my editor came in and was like, ‘He kind of sounds like Jar Jar,’ which is a pretty divisive character.”
The root at the heart of Trachtenberg and his editor’s concern comes down to: is this too Disney for a Predator movie? Ultimately, it’s safe to say that their gamble with Bud paid off, as the character not only pulls his own weight in the final act of the film, but is also revealed to actually be a young Kalisk himself. Since the film’s release, Bud has become a fan-favorite, and a character people are eager to see show up again in future projects. So ultimately, Bud is yet another huge gamble in Predator: Badlands that paid off in spades.
Predator: Badlands is streaming now on Hulu.