How Star Wars Inspired Predator: Badlands

With Prey, director Dan Trachtenberg did something no one ever thought was possible. He took a beloved franchise, Predator, and flipped it on its head. By giving it a fresh perspective and a new timeline, he took something old and brought it into the now. For his follow-up, he wanted to do that again, but it was difficult. Everyone kind of just wanted Prey 2.

“Sometimes when you make a sequel, it’s just part two of the cool thing, not a cool thing in and of itself,” Trachtenberg said recently at San Diego Comic-Con. So, instead, he kept his imagination racing. “What would be another essential movie? What’s something that hasn’t been done in the Predator franchise?” he asked himself.

He came up with two answers. The first, Predator: Killer of Killers, is now on Hulu, complete with a new, canon-changing end credits scene. The second is Predator: Badlands, which comes to theaters November 7. For that, Trachtenberg took his grand franchise ambitions in another way.

“The Predator never wins,” he said. “They’re supposed to be the greatest hunters in the galaxy, but humans seem to be really formidable and have always taken them down. But, thinking of a movie where the Predator wins, I didn’t love the idea of making a slasher movie [where] the bad guy is the winner. I really wanted to see if there was a way to make that feel like a really emotional and visceral journey. One where you can connect with the Predator.”

So he had part of an idea, but not the full idea. Then something else clicked. “So I realized there’s this other thing, even more than in the Predator franchise, but in sci-fi-dom, we love the side characters,” Trachtenberg said. “We fall in love with creatures and robots, and they’re often relegated to being the sidekick or the villain, but never the protagonist. So that to me was the bigger deal.”

Now that’s two pieces of an idea. A movie where the Predator wins and a movie where a side character is a main character. But there was one more piece of special sauce that brought them together, and it was found in a galaxy far, far, away.

“The fun of the movie is that even though you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen our main predator Dek with Thia, Elle Fanning’s character, strapped to his back, and the inspiration for that was the image of Chewbacca and C-3PO [in The Empire Strikes Back]. But the ‘cool’ is that it’s not Chewbacca. It’s not a friendly creature that you’re following. It’s the Predator. He is ferocious and badass and very much an antihero. I think of him more like Mad Max in The Road Warrior, or Conan, or Clint Eastwood. And seeing that guy, being strapped to his back for the gauntlet he goes through? That, to me, was some of the most fun.”

And so, that’s how Predator: Badlands came to be. “We’re really taking you on an unexpected adventure thrill ride,” Trachtenberg said. “It’s akin to the first act of every King Kong movie or Mysterious Island or [anything] Ray Harryhausen.”

Predator: Badlands opens November 7. For a breakdown of the first 15 minutes of the film and photos of its Comic-Con activation, visit those links.

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