Overview
- Predator: Badlands opens in theaters on November 7, 2025, marking Dan Trachtenberg’s second feature in the franchise.
- The story centers on young Yautja Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) partnering with synth Thia (Elle Fanning) with no human characters included.
- Thia is identified as a Weyland-Yutani android, establishing an explicit on-screen link to the Alien universe.
- Trachtenberg cites the original Force Awakens teaser and classic buddy films as inspirations for making a Predator the lead and shaping the Dek–Thia dynamic.
- He says he considered bringing back Prey’s Naru but chose not to in order to preserve the no-humans premise, while suggesting any eventual crossovers would come only after standalone stories; a new featurette highlights Dek’s “warrior’s journey.”