“Here you're not the predator… you're the prey.”
Classic line. Been used before, sure. But this time, it lands different. Maybe because the voice behind it — young, defiant, half-growled through alien vocal cords — actually means it. Not as a threat. As a vow.
“I am prey to no one!”
Hell yes. Even I felt a flicker. And I've spent the last twenty years watching franchise cinema turn on autopilot — same beats, same edits, same soulless CGI sprawl. But this? Predator: Badlands ? Feels like someone remembered what made the damn thing work in the first place.
Not the shoulder cannon. Not the invisibility cloak.
Tension. The jungle. The sense that something is watching .
Dan Trachtenberg knows this. He proved it with Prey — which, let's be honest, shouldn't have worked as well as it did. A prequel? On Hulu? With a Comanche heroine taking down a Predator with a tomahawk and grit? Sounded like committee brainstorming at 3 a.m. Instead, it had teeth. Real ones.
Now he's doubling down. Taking the franchise into outer space — not some glossy, sterile Alien corridor, but a scorched, wind-scoured planet that looks like Mars after a divorce. And instead of another grizzled commando crew getting picked off one by one, we get… an outcast. A young Yautja, exiled, searching. Not for glory. For purpose.
And he brings an android with him. Played by Elle Fanning. Which — fine, sounds like studio math: “Let's add a pretty face and call her sentient.” But the trailer shows her dryly observing, “You don't need me. You need a challenge.” There's weight there. Almost tragic. Like she sees what he can't: that this hunt isn't about proving himself to his clan. It's about becoming something else entirely.
Trachtenberg's always had an eye for character within spectacle. Remember the basement in 10 Cloverfield Lane ? Claustrophobic, real, terrifying — not because of the monster, but because of the man. He brings that same restraint here, even amid IMAX-scale chaos. The action cuts clean. No shaky cam vomit. Wide shots. You see the terrain. You feel the exposure.
And good Christ, the creature design — still brutal. Still elegant. That clicking jaw, the dreadlocks whipping in the dust storm. They haven't over-designed it into oblivion. It's still the Predator. Just… evolved. Or maybe devolved. Depends on your view.
What surprises me most? The humor. Actual humor. Not quips over gunfire. Not Marvel-style deflection. But the kind of dark, weary irony that comes from two mismatched beings realizing they're stuck with each other. The Predator tilts his head at Fanning's android. She sighs. “Yes, I'm coming.”
It shouldn't work. But it does.
And look — I know what you're thinking. Another IP revival. Another legacy sequel in disguise. But this isn't chasing nostalgia. It's expanding the myth. Tying into Predator: Killer of Killers , the animated film also directed by Trachtenberg — rare for a live-action filmmaker to bridge both forms without embarrassment. Shows commitment. Vision.
Release date? Mark it: November 7, 2025 . In theaters. Not streaming day-and-date. Not dumped in December. They're giving it space. Respect. IMAX, Dolby Cinema, 4DX, Cinemark XD, ScreenX — all formats firing. They want you to feel the impact. The heat bloom on the thermal scope. The crunch of bone.
Smart. Because if this lands right, it could do what few franchises manage anymore: evolve without losing its spine.
Back in '87, McTiernan dropped Dutch and his team into the jungle and let paranoia do the rest. No exposition. No moralizing. Just heat, sweat, and something up in the trees.
Trachtenberg seems to remember that.
He's not making a social statement. Not pushing an agenda. He's making a movie . One about honor, isolation, and the cost of proving you belong.
Even if you're already extinct in the eyes of your own kind.
So yeah. I'll be there. First showing. Probably muttering to myself in the back row.
Because something tells me this one won't just hunt its victims.
It might just earn its place.
