Predator: Badlands Teaser Introduces a Young Banished Predator

A new live-action Predator movie is rare — one that elevates the franchise’s murdering extraterrestrial to the title role and hero of the story? Rarer still. Today, 20th Century Studios made that fantasy come true with the first teaser for the upcoming Predator: Badlands, taking the classic sci-fi slasher out of our dimension and into new, unexpected directions.

The film follows Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi), a young Predator who has been exiled from his community. A far cry from the ruthless, emotionless hunters of his kind we’re accustomed to, Dek will take center stage in this story, allying himself with the most unlikely of companions: Thia (Elle Fanning), a Weyland-Yutani android. Thia and Dek’s dynamic “partnership” will be tested by “the ultimate adversary” — an unknown creature that can’t be killed and which, as the teaser trailer suggests, is an enormous, never-before-seen monster from either the Predator or Alien franchises.

Badlands: Predator Expands the Universe

This spin on the Predators will be a standalone story within the broader Predator/Aliens shared universe, but early word on the street suggests it will do some heavy worldbuilding. Reports from casting and production point to at least some of the movie being set on the Predator home world, a locale which the franchise has only ever hinted at in previous films and in expanded media — until now, at least. The first teaser gives us some tantalizing, if fleeting, glimpses at the worlds and Predator colonies, along with more than one pair of Predators holding each other in a staring standoff or ripping into bloody battle.

Co-writer and director Dan Trachtenberg is another who seems primed to expand on the Predator universe. The last Predator film was the well-received Prey, released in 2022 to high marks and an impressive number of viewers on Hulu, with its relative success spreading word-of-mouth in the mainstream media. The film, which Trachtenberg directed and co-wrote, was notable for stripping back the familiar elements of the classic sci-fi slasher in favor of a stripped-down, survivalist hunter-hunted standoff set in 18th 18th-century American Great Plains. Badlands appears set to extrapolate on the Predator species: not just its weapons and technologies, but its culture, language, and tribal politics.

It will be interesting to see more of Trachtenberg’s signature touches, too, though. While both films center on a young Predator — Mapi, played by Amber Midthunder in Prey, and Dek in Badlands — Prey pared the film back to almost brutalist, stripped-down visuals, with a lot of focus on taking the audience into an “alien” world. The teaser for Badlands offers tantalizing glimpses of Dek’s possible reintegration into the Predator society and, as noted above, its civilization. Even the character of Thia has some different touches to her — an android is an android is an android in the Alien universe, but Elle Fanning’s Weyland-Yutani-enhanced killer can already be glimpsed as a cold, clockwork killing machine with a palpable sense of inquisitive human empathy as well.

It’s notable, too, that this is the first Predator film to pair the creatures with a human-built android. Weyland-Yutani, with its ties to the Alien series, has been a popular target for fan theories of crossovers in the franchise and real moments in other, less clearly defined aspects of the lore — so fans who love those will no doubt be on the lookout for them here.

A Director Returns

Speaking of returning aspects, Trachtenberg’s hand in the film is, itself, a major draw. His Prey was not only well-received as a reboot to the franchise, but also found an audience on Hulu, garnering a good amount of positive word-of-mouth for the film in the mainstream press. By re-securing Trachtenberg as director and giving him even more rope with which to work, 20th Century Studios is placing a major stake in their continued faith in his ability to direct fan service, but fan service with enough of his particular brand of innovation to maintain, if not grow, the audience for the film.

Trachtenberg will be keeping busy with Predator properties: he is in development on Predator: Killer of Killers, an animated anthology series which will premiere on Hulu (the same service that allowed Prey its audience) on June 6, that will explore individual Predator hunts through multiple timelines, settings, and story approaches.

The Teaser Trailer

Teaser trailers, by their nature, don’t give much away in terms of story — so while this one teases a big reveal for the creature which Dek, Thia, and possibly other Predators will be hunting, it doesn’t show much more than a few silhouettes. We do get a closer look at Predators in ceremonial armor, two of them engaging in a duel to the death; Dek on his own in a very unknown world, possibly hunting or hiding; Thia holding her own in combat and wielding the latest in weaponry technology; as well as glimpses of the “unkillable” threat looming in the background.

The vast, verdant, and otherwise alien-feeling worlds in which the Predators live and move (and occasionally fight each other) feel big and expansive, and we get a quick look at the possible size of the island-sized monster threat as well.

More than anything, this teaser shows that Badlands is not a retread of Predators from the past. The dynamic alone — a lone Predator without his place in his community on the other side of the table from us, the audience — will alter the expected tropes and move the moral needle a bit. If Dek’s journey involves reclaiming his place in the community, his right to hunt, or his status with the other Predators, then audiences may find themselves in a new side of the franchise: on the side of the Predator.