A young Predator will hunt a giant alien kaiju to restore his honor… and more!
by Repus Wilder, 22 April 2025
Exclusive footage of Predator: Badlands was unveiled to the lucky attendees of CinemaCon 2025, followed by interviews with the director and cast. New details and confirmation of previously speculated plot points and characters now indicate what to expect from the next installment. With the incredibly positive audience and critical reception of Prey in 2022, the franchise is anticipated to continue its comeback with Predator: Badlands.
Here’s what we know so far.
What is Predator: Badlands About? (Story Details and Exclusive Footage Description)
Predator: Badlands is a standalone, sci-fi action film scheduled to release in theaters on November 7, 2025. The film follows Dek, a young Yautja (Predator) warrior exiled from his clan on a mission to restore his honor by hunting the biggest and baddest creature he can find on an alien planet.
Dan Trachtenberg is returning to direct Predator: Badlands after his Hulu streaming success Prey in 2022, the previous installment in the franchise. From Prey, Trachtenberg is joined by co-writer Patrick Aison and cinematographer Jeff Cutter.
The exclusive footage of Predator: Badlands shown at CinemaCon further hints at the major plot points of the film. The young Predator crash lands on a ruthless alien planet and is pursued by an overwhelming number of humans with laser weapons. A seemingly cybernetic human named Thia helps Dek on his journey across the planet. A sequence of action shots show Dek using new weapons to hunt aliens, followed by a quick tease of the movie’s insuperable antagonist and the target of Dek’s hunt, a colossal alien kaiju.
When and Where does Predator: Badlands Take Place?
Predator: Badlands is set in the future on an alien planet. Shots from CinemaCon’s footage depict humans with advanced weaponry on the same planet as the Predator, suggesting that in this era, humans have progressed to being capable of interstellar travel and pose a legitimate threat to the Yautja. This new setting invokes a fresh reversal of the usual power dynamic. This time, humans aren’t just helpless insects to be crushed by the Predator, but formidable opponents and possibly hunters of their hunters.
Elle Fanning, starring as Thia, revealed at CinemaCon (via Fandango) that a lot of filming occurred on real locations in New Zealand. Last summer, the New Zealand Herald reported a secret American movie being filmed in Rotorua under the working title of Back Pack directed by Dan Trachtenberg. This secret project most likely was the filming of Predator: Badlands. The landscapes of Rotorua radiate a symphony of vibrant colors and boast misty geysers and other natural formations, painting a beautiful and exotic picture of the inspiration for the alien planet.
Predator: Badlands Main Characters and Casting
Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi – Dek the Predator
Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi will star as the iconic monster and protagonist, Dek. Like his predecessors, Schuster-Koloamatangi will don a practical suit to embody the Predator’s strength, valor, and viciousness.
Schuster-Koloamatangi was nominated for his role in The Panthers, and is known for appearing in Upright, Red, White & Brass and Far North.
Elle Fanning – Thia and Tessa
Decorated actress Elle Fanning will co-star in a dual role as twin sisters Thia and Tessa. From an alleged leaked casting call (via AvP Galaxy), Thia is naive and light hearted and was sheltered in a laboratory but yearns for adventure. In contrast, Tessa is militaristic, serious, and goal-oriented. Based on their personalities and newly revealed plot details, Tessa will most likely be at odds with her sister as she hunts Dek while Thia helps him.
Elle Fanning is best known for her performances in Super 8, Maleficent, The Neon Demon, and TV role in The Great.
Predator: Badlands blends VFX and Practical like its Predecessors
VFX has revolutionized science fiction filmmaking, however when it comes to repeatedly showing the main character in action, it can’t beat well executed practical effects. The Predator franchise set a high standard by placing the monsters’ actors into realistic practical suits, emphasizing the creature’s alien biology and awesome futuristic technology. Predator even went as far as crafting an animatronic head for the face reveal of that one, ugly motherf****r. More recently, Prey blended practical and VFX, putting Dane DiLiegro in a menacing suit to terrorize his co-stars on set and later pasting on an expressive and monstrous face using CGI.
Predator: Badlands will follow this blueprint and allow Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi to express the physicality and mannerisms of the Predator on set.
Non-verbal acting is a challenging and often overlooked skill. It is even more crucial when making non-human characters shine on the big screen. Trachtenberg expressed his confidence in Schuster-Koloamatangi, praising his expressive body language and movement in his action packed audition (via ComicBook):
We had a very specific casting for Dek. We thought we would want a stunt guy and this was a real opportunity… this dude Dimitrius came up and the way he moved just had a great swashbuckle to it. He just was so cool. We set up a little physical obstacle course. That’s how we cast him…
I was not at all prepared for what he actually does, it’s so… I could not believe, how did we luck into this guy? It’s crazy that we found him.
Schuster-Koloamatangi’s performance wowed his co-star, too, as Elle Fanning stated (via Fandango):
It was so physical for [Schuster-Koloamatangi], too… just the stunts that he had to perform… What’s so great about it is that he’s there, you know, it’s not like the Predator is just a tennis ball…
The suit is quite amazing with, you know, the skin and the texture and so it’s real and there. So it does add a real human quality and I think that’s what Dan has brought to this particular film…
With the Predator being the protagonist, the film will more closely explore Yautja culture and life and feature interactions between members of the species. Trachtenberg expressed his irritation of past installments overlooking Yautja culture and revealed that the film will feature a distinct written and spoken language (via ComicBook):
I should mention the language. We, insanely, decided to really treat that properly… we reached out to the guy who does the Na’vi language [in Avatar], who was very occupied, and recommended his mentee.
…all the stuff that you’ve seen in other Predator movies is complete garbage. There’s no sense of it. People from the Internet have tried to make sense of it, but none of it was made with intention.
So we decided to make [Yautja language] with intention… so everything they’re speaking has actual rules and structure and all that stuff. And written as well as verbal.
The Yautja faces will be digitally enhanced to really sell the depth of their language, facial expressions, and emotional delivery. Tratchenberg elaborates on the necessity of VFX in this case as the Yautja have distinct mandibles used in vocalization (via Comicbook):
We want you to bond with a horrific-looking creature… The face is all digital… It’s very different than Gollum or [Planet of the Apes] that are a one-to-one translation to a human face. [The Yautja] got these mandibles, and we just discovered the other day, whenever Dimitrius blinks, we might not want to see the Predator blink. That might just be an eyebrow movement, and we tried that. Like, ‘Oh yeah, that feels more like that emotion’…
Unlike in the Predator’s past appearances, Dek might have his mask off more often than not when he’s interacting with Thia and hitting the emotional beats of his character arc.
The New Direction of Predator: Badlands Draws Both Excitement and Concern
Overall, initial reactions to Predator: Badlands out of CinemaCon are positive and supportive, albeit with some concerns about its reversal of tropes.
In Predator: Badlands, the Predator is the main protagonist and “the good guy”. Fans have been looking forward to a Predator focused film, however this trope has to be carefully executed to avoid the pitfalls of past monster movies and installments of the franchise.
Elle Fanning called Thia’s team up with Dek unprecedented, however this relationship was explored in Alien vs Predator back in 2004. Protagonist Alexa Woods formed an alliance with the Predator Scar and was later rewarded by an elder Yautja for her bravery against the Xenomorphs. This twist had audiences on the edge of their seat at the time, but sentiments have wavered since the film’s initial release. The Predator generally being involved in human affairs has been a widely debated creative decision. Some prefer how the human aspect makes the Predator more relatable, while others believe it impairs the character . Really it comes down to how the film handles the identity of the Predator itself.
To this day, the original Predator, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Carl Weathers, is repeatedly referred to as the ultimate standard of the Predator’s terror and mystique. Its alien origins, dedication to its code of honor, and deviation from the human moral compass is what set it apart from other monsters and villains. It’s not “good” or “bad”, it’s the Predator.
In 1987, the Jungle Hunter patiently and methodically picked off Dutch and his gang one by one, instead of attacking them head-on like a mindless demon. When confronted with overwhelming firepower, it fled into the jungle, narrowly avoiding a relentless storm of bullets and grenades. In its final moments, fatally injured and looking up at Dutch, it initiated self destruction while laughing maniacally.
In 2022, the Feral Predator opted to use a shield, spear, and boltcaster to hunt despite owning technology for interstellar travel and near perfect invisibility. When confronted by a grizzly bear, it holstered its weapons to wrestle and validate its own raw strength, then celebrated by bathing in its blood. When Naru was caught in a trap, it abandoned its chase after brutally killing her tribe members, deeming her harmless and thus unworthy for its hunt.
A big part of the Predator’s appeal is the mystery of its motivations and native Yautja culture, which makes it difficult to completely rationalize its behavior through a human lens. Allowing the Predator to have both “good” and “bad” moments gives it a level of unpredictability and complex depth. However, anthropomorphizing the Predator and making it “the good guy” runs the risk of erasing the very essence of what makes the Predator so other-worldly.
Nevertheless, one common monster movie criticism that this new film will completely avoid is “not enough monster in the monster movie”. With Dek front and center as the protagonist, it will be exciting to watch him survive the alien planet, and utilize the new and improved tools of the future in his hunt.
Will Predator: Badlands Continue to Push the Franchise’s Rising Momentum?
Despite the rollercoaster of controversies and ratings the Predator film series has garnered, Trachtenberg and his team have diverted the franchise onto an optimistic recovery path. Trachtenberg aims to keep the ball rolling with the animated film Predator: Killer of Killers releasing June 6, 2025 on Hulu, and delivering a cinematic experience in theaters with Predator: Badlands on November 7, 2025.
The last theatrical release The Predator debuted its official trailer in June 2018, just three months before hitting theaters in September 2018. Predator: Killer of Killers will kick off this summer, so expect the Predator: Badlands official trailer to drop later this year.
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