Into the ‘Predator: Badlands’ with the Stars and Director of the New Film

It’s incredible to think that in just three years, director Dan Trachtenberg has reinvented the Predator franchise in such a profound way!

From taking the film far into the past, and exploring the badass roots of both the Yautja and the Comanche Nation in Prey, to exploring how the Yautja have persisted as hunters through all of history in Predator: Killer of Killers, Trachtenberg has changed the way we think about the Yautja mythos forever. Now he, alongside stars Elle Fanning and Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, are taking it further with Predator: Badlands.

With Predator: Badlands, the trio of Trachtenberg, Koloamatangi, and Fanning take the franchise to a place no one has ever seen, centering the entire film on the franchise’s first Yautja protagonist, Dek. In doing this, which is a brilliant way to tell a story, Trachtenberg rewrites the history of the franchise by allowing us to experience the culture of the Yautja first-hand. Seeing (and technically creating) an entire culture for this species allows us to empathize with them, reminding us that, overall everyone has a story to tell. And when we learn more about them, we see there’s much more going on beneath the surface than we think there is.

We had the high honor recently to chat with all three of these Predator all-stars! We discussed what it was like for Trachtenberg to utilize the Predator franchise to explore universal themes, and asked what it was like for Koloamatangi and Fanning how it was for them to learn and speak Yautja. Here’s what they had to say: