“Predator: Badlands” arrived at Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday to preview footage from the upcoming sci-fi film from “Prey” director Dan Trachtenberg.
The panel started with a sizzle reel of previous “Predator” movies before a Predator (above) came out on the Hall H stage, scanned the room with it’s heatvision and spoke Yautja to the audience. It singled out host Kevin Smith who is celebrating his 30th Comic-Con.
15 minutes of the film was shown. The highlights include the hero predator of the movie, Dek, engaging in a fight with his brother Kwei. Their father arrives and orders Kwei to kill Dek because of his weakness. Kwei refuses, saying that Dek deserves his first hunt. The father disagrees and Dek is saved by his brother and put onto a ship that will take Dek to the planet to hunt the ultimate Apex Predator – the Kalisk.
Trachtenberg’s last “Predator” film titled “Prey,” was a straight-to-Hulu release in 2022 that received critical acclaim, and on the heels of its success, Disney decided to give the filmmaker another installment in the franchise for the big screen.
If “Prey” was a grounded prequel telling the story of one of the first times the alien hunter landed on earth, then “Predator: Badlands” buries the needle in the opposite direction, full of giant monsters, killer vines and an unlikely alliance between a young Predator named Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) and Thia (Elle Fanning), who based on this trailer looks to be playing an android. (Could the “Alien” and “Predator” worlds be more formally merging in this installment?)
“Prey” was such a refreshing rejuvenation of the franchise that began with John McTiernan’s “Predator” back in 1987 and continued with Stephen Hopkins’ underrated “Predator 2” in 1990, Nimród Antal’s “Predators” in 2010 and Shane Black’s “The Predator” in 2018. There were also two “Alien vs. Predator” movies in 2004 and 2007, but the less said about those the better.
