For almost forty years, the Predator has been the thing hunting you from the trees — the invisible death, the trophy-taking monster, the villain. The first full trailer for “Predator: Badlands” just tore that up. In a bold, franchise-flipping swing, the movie makes the Predator the protagonist, and after one look at the footage, it’s clear director Dan Trachtenberg is doing something nobody’s tried with this creature before. The prey is now the hero.
Trachtenberg has earned the benefit of the doubt. His previous “Predator” film, “Prey,” was a lean, vicious, widely adored reinvention that reminded everyone why the creature was scary in the first place — a back-to-basics survival story that landed as one of the franchise’s best entries in decades. So when he turns around and flips the entire premise on its head, you lean in rather than roll your eyes. This is a filmmaker who has proven he understands the Yautja better than anyone working today. Warning: beyond this point there are spoilers for “Predator: Badlands” and the story its first full trailer reveals.
For almost forty years, the Predator has been the thing hunting you from the trees — the invisible death, the trophy-taking monster, the villain. The first full trailer for “Predator: Badlands” just tore that up.”
Here’s the setup the trailer lays out. On a remote, hostile planet, a young Predator — an outcast, cast out from his own clan — sets off on a journey in search of the ultimate adversary, the fight that will prove his worth. Along the way he finds an unlikely ally, and the whole film reframes the creature we’ve always feared as an underdog protagonist with something to prove. The trailer even shows the Predator in a position we’ve never truly seen him in: as the prey, the hunted, forced to fight his own way out of danger. It’s a genuinely fresh angle on a monster we thought we had figured out.
The wild card is Elle Fanning, and the trailer’s most memorable image belongs to her. Fanning co-stars as a Weyland-Yutani android — and, in a detail that instantly set the internet buzzing, her synth is missing her legs, reduced to a torso who nonetheless becomes an unlikely partner to the young hunter. It’s a strange, striking, darkly funny visual, the kind of swing that tells you this movie isn’t playing it safe. And that Weyland-Yutani name is doing heavy lifting: it’s the sinister corporation from the “Alien” films, quietly confirming that these two nightmare franchises share the same universe.
That connective tissue is a big part of the excitement. The “Alien” and “Predator” properties have been officially and unofficially entangled for years, and dropping Weyland-Yutani into “Badlands” ties the Predator’s story to the larger cosmic-horror sandbox in a way that feels organic rather than forced. For fans who’ve long wanted these worlds to properly intersect beyond the old crossover movies, the trailer is a tantalizing hint that the connections run deep.
What impresses most is the sheer confidence of the thing. Making the audience root for the Predator requires threading a real needle — you have to keep the creature dangerous and alien while giving it enough of an inner life to carry a movie. The trailer suggests Trachtenberg has cracked it, leaning into the Yautja’s warrior code and outsider status to build an unlikely hero without sanding off the menace that makes the creature iconic. It’s the boldest reinvention the franchise has attempted, and it looks like it might actually work.
After spending a good chunk of the last few decades on the pop-cultural back burner, the Predator is roaring back toward genuine blockbuster status, and “Badlands” looks poised to capitalize on all the goodwill “Prey” earned. Trachtenberg clearly isn’t interested in running the same play twice — he’s using the audience’s renewed love for the creature to go somewhere strange and new. The trailer is a promise that this won’t be another retread of guys-in-a-jungle-getting-picked-off.
“Predator: Badlands” hits theaters in November, and on the strength of this first full look, it might be the most interesting thing the franchise has done in years. Flip the hunter into the hunted, hand the hero’s role to the monster, and stitch it all to the “Alien” universe — that’s a lot of nerve for one movie. If Trachtenberg pulls it off, the Predator’s best era might be the one where he finally becomes the good guy.
What Do You Think? Does making the Predator the hero sound like a brilliant reinvention, or does the creature lose something essential the moment we’re supposed to root for it? How deep should the Weyland-Yutani connection go — is a full “Alien” and “Predator” universe crossover something you want, or is the tease better than the payoff? After “Prey,” has Dan Trachtenberg earned enough trust that you’ll follow him anywhere with this franchise, or is flipping the hunter into the hunted a swing too far?
See you on the next binge!
