It’s a good time to be a fan of the Predator franchise. After years of back and forth with waxing and waning sequels in terms of quality, the franchise is now riding the rare kind of high that it has not experienced in earnest since the original film released in 1987. After the critical and streaming success of Prey, the franchise launched the excellent animated anthology film Predator: Killer of Killers earlier this year, and is now gearing up to release a big-budget, blockbuster sequel this weekend, in the form of Predator: Badlands.
All of these films have been exceptionally well received by fans and critics alike, and there’s one man to thank for all of that: Dan Trachtenberg. The filmmaker had a couple of success stories to his name before joining the ranks of the Yautja (most notably the superb 10 Cloverfield Lane), but Trachtenberg has really cemented his legacy as an incomparable franchise filmmaker in recent years with Predator. And according to a new interview, it doesn’t look like he’s going to be through with the world of Predator anytime soon.
Between Prey, Killer of Killers, and now Badlands, Trachtenberg has made several vastly different kinds of Predator films, all set in completely different parts of the franchise’s overarching timeline. As such, he has essentially completely opened up the board in the process, broadening the horizon of the franchise. As recently as just a few short years ago, the conversation that dominated the release of any new Predator film was ‘how could it possibly live up to the original?’ But with Trachtenberg’s films, they have been so original and well-crafted that that has ceased to even be a concern. Now, they are simply great Predator films that stand alongside John McTiernan’s seminal original.
As such, it is delightful to hear that Trachtenberg has no plans of stepping away from the helm. When asked by BAFTA in a recent interview whether he has "sequels or new things cooking away" for after Badlands, Trachtenberg responded with a short and succinct, “Yep.”
This is notable, given just how much potential for future stories has been sewn into his previous two films. Both Killer of Killer and Badlands plant the seeds for all kinds of stories that the franchise could grow to encompass down the road, from returning legacy characters to bold new stories set on entirely different worlds.
The Predator in Badlands was originally going to be blind
Elsewhere in the interview, Trachtenberg also shared a bevy of inspirations that drove his process for Badlands, including several ideas that didn't make the final cut. For instance, he revealed that the film was initially set to center on a blind Yautja. "The first instinct that we have initial treatments of, was always that he was going to be the runt of the litter... but he was blind. I was sort of thinking of Blind Fury, Book of Eli, and The Blind Samurai."
That ultimately ended up not working out. The filmmaker stated that he likes to make audiences feel "linked" to the main character, and planned to do that by limiting what they saw just as the Predator's sight was limited. But doing that meant limiting what audiences and the Predator could see of this "new crazy planet," and that clashed with the overall vision of the film.
When later pressed on video game inspirations, Trachtenberg revealed not only that he wants a Predator: Badlands video game to be made sooner rather than later, but also that an unlikely game served as essential inspiration for the sequel. "Shadow of the Colossus is one of my favorite games of all time, and there's definitely a heart in this movie that is one from that game as well."
All of this serves to strengthen the case that Trachtenberg is far from finished with the Predator universe. In fact, he may just be getting started.
Predator: Badlands is out in theaters on November 7.