Director Dan Trachtenberg breathed new life into the Predator franchise with 2022’s Prey which he followed up with Killer of Killers, an animated anthology that fundamentally reframed everything fans once believed they knew, opening the doors wide for new era of storytelling. The first chapter in that new era will be Predator: Badlands, also directed by Trachtenberg, who once again promises to deliver something audiences have never seen in a Predator film.
Where Killer of Killers expand the Yautja’s role in the history of the AVP universe and pulled the curtain back a bit more on the franchise’s killing machines, the Yautja, Badlands looks to expand on that, revealing more of what makes the species tick and by making one of them, Dek, the film’s protagonist rather than it’s Boogeyman. With just one month to go until the film’s release, 20th Century Studios has released a new trailer for the film, along with a synopsis that highlight not only Dek’s dangerous journey but also his partnership with Elle Fanning‘s Weyland-Yutani synth, Thia.
Set in the future on a deadly remote planet, Badlands follows a young Predator outcast (played by newcomer Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) who finds an unlikely ally in Thia (Emmy and Golden Globe nominee Elle Fanning) as he embarks on a treacherous journey in search of the ultimate adversary.
-Synopsis for Predator: Badlands
While visiting the set of Predator: Badlands, Screen Rant spoke with producer Ben Rosenblatt, who shed some light on Thia, who will spend a great deal of the film on Dek’s back.
On this journey, he meets a Weyland-Yutani synth who has been severed in half and stuck in a nest on the planet waiting for some way to help get out of there. So the backstory on that is Weyland-Yutani has sent an all-synth mission onto this planet to pursue the very same beast for their own purposes.
-Ben Rosenblatt
“The big idea is that we are trying to do a Predator movie where the Predator is the hero, the protagonist of the movie,” Rosenblatt explained “So our story follows an undersized predator.”
With a Yautja as the lead, Predator: Badlands will get a chance to follow Dek to Yautja Prime, the home planet of the alien species as seen in Killer of Killers, though that’s not the film’s primary setting. “It begins on Yautja Prime with this predator and his immediate family,” explained Rosenblatt, “and through a series of both exciting and tragic events, he’s set off on a journey on a foreign planet, and that’s where most of the film is taking place.”
Given what fans learned about the Yautja and their home planet in Killer of Killers, it seems possible that Predator: Badlands will share some connective tissue with the animated project and may set the stage for whatever Trachtenberg has in mind for the franchise’s next installment.
Predator: Badlands will hit theaters on November 7th
Source: Screen Rant
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