Predator: Badlands First Look Brings New Lore and High Stakes

Live-action Predator movies are a rare treat these days, especially when they involve the Predator as a hero. But 20th Century Studios just dropped the first teaser trailer for the upcoming film Predator: Badlands, and it promises to be anything but traditional.

Badlands stars Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi as Dek, a young Predator outcast on the run. The film pairs Dek with Thia, a Weyland-Yutani android played by Elle Fanning, as they face off against “the ultimate adversary” – something “that can’t be killed.” We see only brief glimpses of the mysterious “unkillable” creature in the teaser, but it looks like an absolute giant of a monster and nothing like anything we’ve seen in the Alien/Predator shared universe before.

New Perspectives in the Predator Universe

Badlands is only the second live-action feature film set in the Predator universe to feature a female lead, following in the footsteps of 2022’s Prey, which earned near-universal acclaim. That film’s director, Dan Trachtenberg, also co-wrote the Badlands script and is in the director’s chair again.

Prey told a stripped-back story of hunter and hunted in a reverse Native American genocidal fantasy setting in the 18th-century American Great Plains, casting Jesse Stillwell’s Naru as the hunter in what was essentially a mano-a-mano duel. Badlands promises to be a different sort of film, though. It will tell the story of the titular badlands’ namesake, Dek, and his interactions with Thia, but more than that, it will go deep into the species’ worldbuilding.

So far, we have learned that Badlands is at least partially set on the Predator home planet, something we have only ever seen teased in previous installments of the Alien/Predator shared universe. The teaser also shows various Predators standing in what looks like the same position, exchanging cryptic dialogue and engaging in an intense staring contest before it abruptly cuts to them butting heads, then drawing weapons and going to blows in stylized silence. The alien world looks detailed and packed with life, with glimpses of Predator settlements and open plains dotted with wildlife.

We are about to get very deep into Yautja culture, rituals, language, dress, and politics. On one hand, this is nothing new to Predator lore. We’ve seen plenty of nuance in the past, from the cultural differences between Ranko’s (Mahershala Ali) military Predator team and Corley’s (Olivia Munn) science team to Review’s (Sterling K. Brown) interrogation team. The Predator films of the 2020s have really upped the ante for in-depth worldbuilding and are adding depth to Predator behavior we never knew we wanted.

On the other hand, Trachtenberg has been open about how Badlands will be returning to some of Prey’s DNA in the sense of stripping back the layers to explore Predator traditions, society, and language. Prey itself was an experiment in deconstructing a “classic” Predator film to its bare essentials and seeing what happens when you switch up the preexisting hunter and prey dynamics. Trachtenberg and co-writer Aaron Guzikowski created a tense duel where both hunter and hunted became far more nuanced and likable than the typical tropes allow.

Badlands looks to further flesh out that idea. Dek is an outcast by the end of the film, but we learn he is motivated to survive to return to his home and become the best hunter in it. While we know the type of Predator protagonist Dek will be before we even meet him, it will be interesting to see how nuanced Trachtenberg and co-writer Aaron Guzikowski will be with his characterization, and more importantly, the unkillable beast that he and Thia face at the end of the teaser.

Badlands‘ Female Lead Thia

Badlands features Elle Fanning as android Weyland-Yutani operative Thia, whose mysterious motivations for being in the alien wilderness with Dek the Predator are not yet fully revealed. She looks like a reprogrammed, updated version of Millicent Minerva from the Alien: Isolation film and games. Her lines are only visible as writing on the side of her palm in the trailer, but she is nevertheless delivered in such a stylized, emotionally monotone cadence that you cannot help but shiver a little at how she recites these few words.

The character is a marked departure from previous Predator features in that she represents a direct, physical, and character-driven link between the Alien and Predator franchises. For fans of the two universes, Weyland-Yutani is the hand that connects them, so to speak. With an actress of Fanning’s caliber, Trachtenberg and company have something very special with Thia. She will likely prove to be a scene-stealer of the highest order, but also a character audiences will be invested in by the end.

Prey, by contrast, leaned into making its protagonist, Naru, lovable and heroic, and it does not necessarily work the other way. We only see Fanning for what is likely a minute or two of the film’s runtime in the teaser. We do not know her motivation. What we do know is that androids and AIfeatures strongly in the Alien films, with the most famous character being Weyland-Yutani Industries android Ash from the 1979 film, so Thia is an interesting inclusion and one that bodes well for the film.

We Have Seen This Cast and Crew Before

Fans of Prey will be happy to know Dan Trachtenberg is back for round two, taking the helm on Badlands. Trachtenberg has been part of the project from the start, and his attachment is one of the reasons Badlands has the potential to be the Predator reboot fans have been waiting for. Prey was a massive success upon release, finding a massive audience on Hulu and earning rave reviews in the process. While some complained the move to stream hurt its performance at the box office, the critical acclaim, word-of-mouth, and generally positive fan response have all improved its reputation since.