Minimum Wage Nerd

Predator’s history on cinema screens can be described as spotty at best.

The original 1987 film is still lauded as one of the best sci-fi action films of all-time and one of the best in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s filmography. After that, the franchise experiences plenty of ups and downs, mostly downs, over the next 32 years. Predator 2 was considered a disappointment following the original film, the Alien vs. Predator films just came-and-went, Predators was considered an improvement over the other sequels but not all that memorable on its own, and The Predator seemed to leave anyone who saw it more baffled than anything at what they just watched.

It was during the production of The Predator, though, that the winds of change were about to come blowing through the franchise.

Director Dan Trachtenberg and screenwriter Patrick Aison approached producer John Davis with an idea they believed would freshen up Predator. The idea revolved around a Yautja, the titular alien hunter, arriving for its first hunt on Earth, specifically along the Great Plains in 1719. Standing opposite it is a young Comanche woman who dreams of becoming a hunter for her tribe instead of a healer, and sets out on a journey to prove that.

The title of this film – Skulls.

Skulls was the original production name as a way to keep the film closely under wraps and it paid off. The only hint of the film’s concept was the early synopsis, which only focused on the young Comanche woman at the center of the story. It was then confirmed in November 2020 that Skulls was the next entry in the Predator franchise, though this seemed to confuse fans given when it is set.

Audiences got a much clearer concept of Prey when the first teasers released in May 2022, giving a look at Naru, the Comanche woman, and the new Yautja, dubbed the Feral Predator. Subsequent trailers painted a clearer picture, which Trachtenberg helped clarify as well, such as confirming the film is the Feral Predator’s first visit to Earth. Between that, and it being the earliest Predator film in the mainline franchise, helped explain away why the Feral Predator didn’t have weapons like the iconic shoulder cannon.

Cut to August 2025, and Prey arrives on Hulu for viewers to enjoy at home and was met with the best reviews for a sequel in franchise history. Trachtenberg, lead star Amber Midthunder, and the team were all lauded for finding a way freshen up the franchise with a twist on the “back to basics” approach of Prey.

However, it did provide the first hint at Trachtenberg’s vision for the franchise going forward in a brief animated mid-credits scene. The scene is part of an illustration played during the main credits retracing the film’s narrative, but picks up shortly after the end. It shows three Yautja ships approaching Naru’s tribe after she returns with the Feral Predator’s head.

For as brief as the scene is, it confirmed Trachtenberg’s intent to dive headfirst into the franchise and expanding the Yautja in ways not depicted in the films up to that point.

20th Century Studios was quick to confirm this would be the case as Trachtenberg would lead the charge on multiple new Predator projects, including two films to be directed by Trachtenberg. The the title of the films were later revealed to be Predator: Badlands and Predator: Killer of Killers, the latter being the first animated entry in franchise history.

Killer of Killers would release on June 6, 2025, on Hulu and, like Prey, be met with widely positive feedback from audiences and critics. The animated anthology follows three warriors from across Earth’s history who manage to best a Yautja they encounter during its hunt. The three – the Viking warrior Ursa, the Shinobi Kenji, and World War 2 pilot John Torres – are then brought together on a Yautja-ruled planet to fight each other, with the survivor battling the Yautja clan’s chief. Kenji and Torres would ultimately escape thanks to Ursa sacrificing herself so the two could get away on a hijacked Predator ship.

Ursa, however, wasn’t killed. It was then revealed she would be placed in suspended animation alongside others who defeated a Yautja including Naru, Schwarzenegger’s character Dutch from the original 1987 film, and Danny Glover’s hardened LAPD officer Lt. Mike Harrigan.

Five months later, Predator: Badlands released in theaters on November 7, 2025, and like the previous two releases was met with a widely positive reception to continue the franchise’s upward swing, critically. Unlike all the franchise’s film entries, though, Badlands would be the first to follow a Yautja during a hunt instead of a human that finds itself being hunted.

Badlands follows Dek, a Yautja from the species’ homeworld of Yautja Prime, who is considered a runt by his father and potential clan. After escaping an attempt on his life with the aid of his brother, Dek ends up on the planet Genna to hunt a creature considered unkillable by the Yautja in an attempt to prove himself. During this hunt, Dek encounters a Weyland-Yutani synthetic named Thia who offers her aid in hunting the creature after leaving her cut in half and her legs missing.

Narratively, Badlands is the culmination of what Trachtenberg had been building to in his previous two films of truly exploring the Yautja as a people versus just deadly alien hunters to be overcome.

This is something that previous entries all the way back to Predator 2 had done a tiny bit of, but never teased going anywhere nearly as deep as Trachtenberg has in his three films. It came across as the studio trying to “have its cake and eat it too” by drip-feeding information about the Yautja as a species but without giving away so much information that the race loses their mystic and sense of danger.

Predators and The Predator would even tease the idea of a Yautja conflict between different tribes or different types of Yautja, but never paid off those teases.

Trachtenberg instead took a deep dive into exploring the Yautja on screen, starting with Killer of Killers depicting how some Yautja handle those who best one of their people. Badlands gave a much clearer idea of their society, though, and how clans valued strength and shunned weakness in a manner similar to ancient Sparta.

It also managed to create a tangible link between the Predator and Alien franchises without it feeling shoe-horned thanks to the presence of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation in Badlands. Whether this means the Xenomorph and Yautja will cross paths one more time on cinema screens, though, remains to be seen.

As the saying goes, “once is an accident, twice is a coincident, three times is a patter,” and that certainly appears to be the same case for Predator and Dan Trachtenberg. The director, who made his feature debut with 2016’s Ten Cloverfield Lane, has reinvigorated a franchise some believed was on “life support” after The Predator failed to make any real splash critically or at the box office.

Three successful entries later and it is safe to laud Trachtenberg as the “golden child” of the Predator franchise for his work and it may continue based on how well Badlands performs. The director has previously teased having three live action films in mind with Prey, Predator: Badlands, and one more film that has not officially been announced.

Even if it doesn’t end up happening, it will not change Trachtenberg’s impact in keeping Predator alive. That said, let’s hope Trachtenberg continues to lead the charge on Predator.