An outcast faces a deadly alien world in Predator: Badlands trailer

[Karlston]

“The ways of your kind are ones of violence. Either you are hunted or you become the hunter.”

 

We’ve got a new international trailer for Predator: Badlands, the latest installment in a popular franchise that’s been around since 1987. It’s directed by Dan Trachtenberg, who is very familiar with the franchise, having also directed 2022’s highly acclaimed standalone Predator movie, Prey.

 

In April, Twentieth Century Studios released the first teaser, which involved multiple predators fighting or threatening one another, Elle Fanning looking very strange and cool as an android, and glimpses of new monsters and the alien world the movie focuses on. And the film was featured prominently at San Diego Comic-Con this summer. But it hasn’t quite wormed its way into the cultural zeitgeist for fall releases. Perhaps this latest trailer will boost its profile.

 

This is a standalone film in the franchise, with a particular focus on the culture of the Predator species; in fact, the same conlanger who created the Na’Vi language for James Cameron’s Avatar franchise also created a written and verbal language for the Predators. (We hear a bit of the dialogue in the new trailer.) And this time around, the primary Predator is actually the film’s protagonist rather than an adversary. Per the official premise: “Set in the future on a deadly remote planet, Predator: Badlands follows a young Predator outcast (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) who finds an unlikely ally in Thia (Elle Fanning) as he embarks on a treacherous journey in search of the ultimate adversary.”

Thia (Elle Fanning) is a damaged Weyland-Yutani synth.  

Credit: YouTube/20th Century Studios

This is a damaged Weyland-Yutani synth, further strengthening the world-building link between the Alien and Predator franchises. (And by damaged, we mean missing her entire lower body.) Both Fanning and Schuster-Koloamatangi actually have dual roles. Fanning also portrays Tessa, another synth who is an antagonist toward our two protagonists. In addition to the outcast runt Predator, Dek, Schuster-Koloamatangi also plays his own father, Njohur—it’s not like anyone would recognize him under all those prosthetics. Mike Homik rounds out the main cast as Dek’s older brother Kwei, who helps prepare him for his first hunt.

 

Predator: Badlands hits theaters on November 7. There’s also a tie-in prequel comic book, set shortly before the events of the film, that will be released on November 12 by Marvel Comics. While they’re waiting, franchise fans can catch Trachtenberg’s animated anthology series, Predator: Killer of Killers, on Hulu (it premiered on June 6).

 

Source

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Posted Friday 24 October 2025 at 3:05 am AEST (my time).

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RIP Matrix

[funkyy]

Wooooo, now that looks tasty. A new slant on the Predator franchise,

with the hunter being hunted. Hope it's as good as the trailer shows.