Predator: Badlands is giving Predator fans the movie they’ve always wanted

The movie is set to hit theaters in November, years after the debut of Prey.

By Joe Allen Published April 24, 2025

Elle Fanning in Predator Badlands — 20th Century Studios

After the success of Prey, there’s some new energy in the Predator franchise. What’s even better for Predator fans, though, is that the next installment seems designed to give them something they’ve always wanted. Namely, a movie that follows a predator’s POV.

In the first trailer for Predator: Badlands, a predator named Dek is exiled from his clan, only to meet a humanoid-looking life-form played by Elle Fanning. The two of them team up to take on something that “can’t be killed,” and a long the way, we get some pretty incredible looks at the homeworld of the predators.

Directed by Dan Trachtenberg, who also directed Prey and 10 Cloverfield Lane, this movie looks to have an even broader scope than Prey. The movie will hit theaters on Nov. 7, but if you can’t wait that long, Trachtenberg has also put together an adult animated anthology film called Predator: Killer of Killers that is set to hit Hulu on June 6. Between the two films, fans of the Predator franchise are set to have a remarkably good year.

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Although we don’t yet know exactly where Badlands will head following its premise, or the exact nature of Fanning’s role, Trachtenberg has proven to be an incredibly sure set of hands when it comes to franchise material. Prey was a surprising success in part because it got to the core of what made the franchise compelling to begin with. Badlands looks to be quite a bit more complicated, but hopefully Trachtenberg still knows how to make the story as compelling as possible.

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Joe Allen is a freelance culture writer based in upstate New York. His work has been published in The Washington Post, The…

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