This past weekend marked the beginning of a brand new era for the Predator franchise, with not only the release of Dan Trachtenberg’s Predator: Badlands, but also the robustly positive reception of it on all fronts. The film received glowing reviews from critics, scored the highest Cinemascore in the franchise’s history, and netted the highest opening weekend out of any Predator film ever. Making a big-budget, blockbuster-ready Predator movie was far from a surefire thing, but Trachtenberg and co. are already well on their way to making their budget back and a substantial profit as well after only one weekend, which can only mean one thing: everyone wants to know what’s next for the Predator films.
Badlands is far from Trachtenberg’s first foray into the world of the Yautja, as he is the same filmmaker who directed both 2022’s Prey and the animated anthology film Predator: Killer of Killers from earlier this same year. And if the filmmaker has his way, he’s far from done with the series, regularly stating in interviews for Badlands that he has “big plans” for the universe moving forward. Now, in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, the filmmaker has opened up about the ending of Badlands and what audiences may see from further Predator installments.
FULL SPOILERS for Predator: Badlands ahead.
The end of Predator: Badlands finds Dek, the titular Yautja that serves as the protagonist of the story, eschewing the teachings of his family and clan, instead embracing the openheartedness that he has found in his relationships with his new friends Thia (the Weyland-Yutani synthetic played by Elle Fanning) and Bud, the young Kalisk (a deadly creature from the planet where Dek spends most of the film). Dek returns with these friends in-tow to Yautja Prime and kills his father, who he has spent the whole film attempting to impress, despite this patriarchal figure having tried to have Dek killed in his sleep.
Initially, the film cuts to black after this satisfying note. However, it comes right back for a quasi-mid-credit scene, where the rest of the clan gears up to attack Dek and company just as a foreboding ship appears on the horizon. When asked who's in the ship, Dek responds, “My mother.”
This obviously sets up some key story threads that any potential sequel to Badlands would want to follow up on, and when pressed for how that ending came about, Trachtenberg said, “It’s definitely, I think, an awesome ending in that it is an ironic conclusion. After we’ve just been dealing with this crazy father the whole movie, that it asks what else Dek might have to go through, and how much worse that could be in the hands of mom, but also because, of course, it means that should we get to see that realized, it would be a whole lot of fun.”
The gender elements of all of this are fascinating as well. With Badlands, Trachtenberg carries on the grand tradition of McTiernan’s original 1987 Predator film, subverting action-movie expectations and dissecting masculine stereotypes in fascinating ways. Much of Dek’s arc throughout the film concerns him finding value in facets of his humanity (Yautjanity…?) that his father and clan have long dismissed: vulnerability, empathy, and compassion.
As such, closing the film out with the matriarchal figure literally crashing into the story makes for an ending that promises to deepen and add complexity to these key themes in further installments. And given how successful the film already is, it feels like a safe bet to say we will be seeing more of Trachtenberg’s vision for the Predator films.
Predator: Badlands is out now in theaters.