SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Predator: Badlands. If you have not yet seen the film, proceed at your own risk!
Predator: Badlands is a self-contained adventure, but it does end with a rad twist. In the wake of Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) killing his awful, awful father, we learn that his life will not henceforth be perfectly safe, as a new threat arrives on the literal horizon: Dek’s mother. It suggests that a future sequel may introduce the first ever female Yautja on the big screen, which would be super cool to see – but what you may not know is that reveal was briefly considered for the new 2025 blockbuster.
When I spoke with writer/director Dan Trachtenberg earlier this month during the Predator: Badlands press day in Los Angeles, I made a point of asking him if he had discussions with legendary creature designer Alec Gillis about creating the first ever live-action female Predator. The filmmaker explained that he did indeed have conversations about the idea, but it was ultimately decided that it was something too big to include in a movie that was already taking such major swings within the franchise. Said Trachtenberg,
Funny enough, we did talk a little bit about it as we were figuring out Badlands. And I initially was like, ‘This is dicey territory. We’re just dipping our toes into the wider Yautja culture. Let’s not quite go there yet.’ But if we ever are to see more, that will certainly be something that the movies… there’s so much in the comics and certainly fan art, but the movies will definitely have to really take on what exactly that kind of character looks like. And I hope to surprise people with it.
As is, Predator: Badlands is unlike any other Predator movie. There are exactly zero human characters, it’s the first story in the big screen canon to feature one of the hunt-loving extraterrestrials as a hero, and it’s the first time that audiences are brought to the aliens’ homeworld in live-action. That’s a lot to take on without also having conversations about gender dynamics in Yautja society and sexual dimorphism in their biology.
Dan Trachtenberg notes that fans and creatives have suggested ideas of what a female Yatja could look like in fan art and comics, but one could argue that all ideas are on the table. The easy route with the idea would be the aliens having sexual characteristics that are similar to those that exist in the human race, but there is nothing really keeping Trachtenberg, Alec Gillis and other masters of their craft inside that box, and it will be exciting to see what they eventually come up with.
In regard to exactly what we can expect from the future of the Predator franchise, Trachtenberg has presented avenues for storytelling but nothing is apparently concrete. In addition to the twist with Dek’s mother in Predator: Badlands, we also saw the animated Predator: Killer Of Killers conclude with an enticing twist this past summer. He explained to me that there presently isn’t a big picture plan, but he is also not ignoring cool ideas when he has them:
On the one hand, really taking everything movie by movie and making sure that we’re not… I don’t mean to Babe Ruth anything and get it too ahead of myself and want to make sure each movie stands on its own. On the other hand, the mind can’t help but wander and draw up dream things as we go. And certainly as we embarked on the post-Prey stuff, I was dreaming up a lot of fun things. But everything’s kind of moment-to-moment.
Predator: Badlands is now playing in theaters everywhere, having had the most successful box office opening in the history of the franchise earlier this month. Fingers are tightly crossed it won’t be too long until we learn what’s next on the way from this eternally awesome canon.