With one of my most anticipated movies of the year, Predator: Badlands, set to hit screens this weekend, everyone is – as we do – wondering where the series will go next and the answer may be backwards in two ways, but that’s not a bad thing.
Marking the third Predator outing for director Dan Trachtenberg, after the really rather great Prey and the animated Predator: Killer of Killers, Badlands takes the series into the far future, long after all the Predator movies we’ve had before and also, way beyond even the Alien movies, which have a strong connection to this new movie.
We know that thanks to the comics and the now not-canon Aliens Vs Predator movies, that the Alien and Predator world are connected, co-existing in one space (pun intended) but now Trachtenberg confirms this is a crossover just not the one we wanted… yet.
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“I would say, Badlands itself is definitely a crossover in that we have the Weyland-Yutani corporation as a huge part of the movie. Elle Fanning plays a Weyland-Yutani synth,” he said at the movie’s premiere.
“I think, sometimes there’s a tendency for a ‘versus’ movie to be grabbing all the action figures and smashing them together, and I thought it was really cool to just take an element from one franchise and fuse it with this one. So yeah, they’re a huge part of the movie.”
The movie’s producer Ben Rosenblatt explained that the crossover aspect was an organic way to go and made complete sense for the storyline and universe because they wanted there to be a character that the audience could see as a doorway into the story but not one they could identify with but also meant that Dek (the titular Predator) remained the main protagonist (like the droids in Star Wars?) and that’s Where Fanning’s character came from. Rosenblatt said: “[Trachtenberg] was like, ‘I would love to have humanoid characters without having humans,’ and he was like, ‘I think we need robots.’ And then, of course Dan was like, ‘I know who makes robots: Weyland-Yutani. And then it was a natural collision of the two worlds.”
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However, this is not the most exciting reveal from Rosenblatt on the red carpet as he revealed that star of the 1987 original (and still the best, come at me) Predator movie, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has been in talks about returning to the franchise as Dutch Schaefer: “Obviously, the holy grail of Predator movies would be getting Arnold back,” he said.
“And it’s always been something in the back of our minds that it would be really great to see him come back to this franchise that he’s made iconic, and that’s made him iconic.
“So, he’s been really wonderful. Arnold and Dan have met a couple of times now. He’s been really interested in what we’re doing, he’s a real fan of what we’ve done so far, from what I understand. And we’re really excited. After Predator: Badlands comes out, we’ll see and have more conversations. Hopefully, we’ll have a chance to do something with Arnold, because that would be awesome,” Rosenblatt went on.
Dutch made a cameo in Predator: Killer of Killers, left, a couple of months back, when we learned that this new tribe of Predators had been collecting opponents who had defeated Yautja warriors in the past, and we saw him in cryo-stasis along with Danny Glover’s Lieutenant Mike Harrigan from Predator 2 and Amber Midthunder’s Naru from Prey, so there was definitely something cooking with that plotline.
Having Arnie back in the series as an older Dutch would be great and so too would having Glover return too, as these two made the franchise what it is today.
So, a new AvP movie possibly coming and Schwarzenegger’s possible return? Man, the Predator universe is looking bigger and better than ever.
Thoughts? I know you have them and I wanna hear ’em all!
Watch the Rosenblatt interview:
#PredatorBadlands producer Ben Rosenblatt teases that Arnold Schwarzenegger has met with Dan Trachtenberg about reprising his role as Dutch from the original ‘Predator’ in an upcoming sequel after making an animated cameo in ‘Predator: Killer of Killers’ https://t.co/hFy9nFoJ8Y pic.twitter.com/MElNJkWL8D
— Deadline (@DEADLINE) November 4, 2025
FIRST LOOK: Official Predator: Badlands prequel comic coming
Source: Deadline
Marc
Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….
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