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With the release of “Predator: Killer of Killers” in the rearview, it’s time to get more on the upcoming live-action feature “Predator: Badlands”, directed by Dan Trachtenberg, who also helmed 2022’s “Prey” and co-directed “Killer of Killers”.
Empire gives us a nice little tease for the upcoming “Badlands” with an image featuring the protagonist Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) and his father. You can see the preview image below.
The sword-wielding Yautja is Dek’s father, which could give you an idea of the younger Yautja’s motivation in “Badlands”. Dek is the disgraced “runt of the litter”, being smaller than other Yautja, and will presumably take on his hunt to prove himself.
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Director Dan Trachtenberg compares Dek to characters like Mad Max and Conan the Barbarian.
“He’s a thing of few words, pretty blunt,” Trachtenberg said. “He cuts straight to the point. Literally and figuratively.”
Whatever those words are, you can rest assured they aren’t random. In order to convincingly create a film in which the usually villainous Yautja is the hero, Trachtenberg and his team took a page from J.R.R. Tolkien’s book and created an actual language for the fierce alien.
For Trachtenberg, it’s crucial that the audience get on Dek’s side.
“That feels like a big idea, not just within Predator, but in sci-fi generally,” Trachtenberg said. “In most sci-fi universes, the ‘creatures’ are either bad guys or sidekicks. In [‘Badlands’] it’s: ‘What if you were with the creature on this crazy mission to prove itself, seeing everything through its eyes?’”
“Badlands” will be the first time in the cinematic franchise that the Yautja is portrayed as the hero.
There have been instances of Yautja forging temporary alliances with humans against other Yautja; something like this occurs briefly in 2010’s “Predators”. But viewers have never before been asked to see the predators as the heroes for the entire film.
Trachtenberg has done a lot to revive the “Predator” franchise and he may be doing even more beyond “Badlands”. He teased another unrealized “Predator” project potentially on the horizon.
“After ‘Prey’, I had three ideas,” Trachtenberg recounted. “One was ‘Killer of Killers’, one was ‘Badlands’ and one… I haven’t done yet. So, there are other awesome ideas and time periods it’d be exciting to explore, and all that’s been part of our discussion for [what’s next].”
“Predator: Badlands” releases in theaters November 7.
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