This week, the official trailer for Predator: Badlands dropped, marking the ninth overall Predator movie in the film franchise. With excitement around the upcoming release increasing, especially with positive reactions to the new preview, we can't help but feel appreciative for how far the series has come—transforming it back into a big-budget, high-octane franchise worth paying to see.
Not only is Dan Trachtenberg’s follow-up to Prey set for a proper theatrical release rather than being exiled to streaming, it’s going all-in on big-budget, premium format filmmaking. Set for release in November of this year, Badlands will be playing on IMAX screens and sports easily the largest budget of any Predator film ever made.
In addition to all of these factors, this trailer also makes it clear that the film is laying the groundwork for even bigger and more ambitious swings to come, with one of the lead characters being a Weyland-Yutani android: a direct reference to the similarly Disney-owned Alien franchise and the possibility of another Alien vs. Predator film.
On top of all of this, Predator: Badlands isn’t even the first Predator film to be released this year. Weeks ago, Trachtenberg’s brand-new animated Predator anthology film, Predator: Killer of Killers, was released on Hulu, where it charted at number one and received further rave reviews.
The animated project featured direct ties to Prey and seemed to be setting up the larger story of Badlands as well. As such, after 30-plus years of executives desperately attempting to turn the Predator series into a viable franchise, Trachtenberg and the now-Disney-owned Fox have demonstrated an unprecedented Midas touch. Everything they’ve done with the IP has turned to gold, and the trailer for Predator: Badlands seems to promise that on an even grander scale than ever before.
In 2019, as Disney acquired the once-storied Hollywood studio of 20th Century Fox, there was little hope in sight for the Fox-owned science-fiction horror-action Predator franchise.
While the original film, John McTiernan’s Predator, had remained a venerated staple of the genre since its release in 1987, every attempted follow-up seemed doomed to underwhelm both critically and commercially. Whether it be 1990’s Predator 2, 2004’s Alien vs. Predator, 2007’s Alien vs. Predator: Requiem, or 2010’s Predators, all of these sequels failed to live up to the level of success set by that first film. And then in 2018, things looked more dire than ever: Shane Black’s big-budget revamp of the franchise, The Predator, tanked at the box office and got an outright vile reception from fans and critics alike.
As a result of this decades-long failure to get the Predator franchise back up and going and on the heels of the fresh failure of the then-latest outing, given the Disney acquisition in 2019, the Predator franchise seemed all but destined to sit on a shelf and gather dust for the next several years. But then, something miraculous happened.
With several streaming sites to upkeep, such as Disney+ and Hulu, the Disney-owned Fox decided to greenlight an old pitch from Trachtenberg for a new Predator film, albeit one that was set to be straight-to-streaming. The pitch was what became 2022’s Prey, and although it didn’t release in theaters, it became the most successful Predator film since the first on practically every level.
Prey was so unanimously praised that the franchise and Trachtenberg received a major burst of goodwill when it came time to chart the next step on this unexpected redemption arc, and the results are on full display in the new trailer for Predator: Badlands.
Predator: Badlands hits theaters on November 7.
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