Filmmaker Dan Trachtenberg has brought the Predator franchise back to life with tremendous energy, and a few key factors explain the sci-fi series’ revival. The Predator movies have seen both highs and lows since the debut of the original Arnold Schwarzenegger-led Predator in 1987. While the franchise’s first movie introduced a new alien movie monster to the world in an action-packed hit that stands as an enduring classic, the Predator franchise hasn’t always equaled the success it started out with. Some installments, like 2010’s Predators, easily lived up to the template established by the original, while others, like 2018’s The Predator, sadly didn’t capture the same magic.
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The Predator franchise’s fortunes really changed with 2022’s prequel Prey, which took the Predator (or “Yautja”) back in time to the 18th century for a battle with young Comanche warrior Naru (Amber Midthunder). Trachtenberg’s 2025 animated anthology follow-up Predator: Killer of Killers was another home run for the previously dormant series. With the series returning to movie theaters with 2025’s Predator: Badlands, it’s clear that Predator has reached a renaissance rivaling its ’80s glory days. Here are five essential ways in which Dan Trachtenberg’s work on the Predator franchise has revived the series to such great success.
1) Trachtenberg’s Predator Movies Do Phenomenal World-Building
As with any long-running sci-fi franchise, world-building and mythology are essential elements of the Predator franchise, and Trachtenberg’s stewardship of Predator has seen both dialed up to 11. It all began with the small but pivotal inclusion of the flintlock pistol originally seen in Predator 2 being featured in the story of Prey, along with the pistol’s owner, Raphael Adolini (Bennett Taylor). While this seemed like a fun Easter egg at the time, Trachtenberg has shifted Predator‘s world-building into high gear with his second and third installments.
Not only does the flintlock pistol return in Predator: Killer of Killers, but the movie also reveals an entirely new side of the Yautja warrior culture. This is prominently seen in the Predators cryogenically freezing humans who defeated Predators before and bringing them to a Colosseum on another planet for a new battle royale, with the movie’s end-credits scene even revealing Amber Midthunder’s Naru being among them. Predator: Badlands also bases its story on an exiled Predator, Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) while including elements of the Alien franchise in what could be a pivotal role in its story. In all, since Trachtenberg took on overseeing the Predator franchise, the universe it takes place just keeps getting bigger and deeper with each new installment.
2) The Predator Culture Is an Essential Element of the Franchise Again
A key aspect of what has made the Predator franchise and the Predators themselves so popular is the culture of the Predators. Prizing warrior skill and hunting prowess above all else, the Predators are also not a monolith, as 2010’s Predators revealed with the new Super Predators being locked in a tribal war against the Classic Predators. This detail alone added a new layer of Predator mythos that 2018’s The Predator failed to properly build upon, but Trachtenberg has made it a staple of his tenure on the Predator franchise.
Both Prey and Predator: Killers of Killers actively build upon the two Yautja factions seen in Predators, revealing a variety of other Predators and showing just how many different Predator tribes there are, a trend Predator: Badlands looks well-poised to continue. Additionally, each subset of Predators approaches hunting somewhat differently in the mythos Trachtenberg has established. In turn, each is interpreted by various human cultures through the prism of their respective mythologies, legends, and religions, showing how differently humans have viewed Predators throughout the ages, and cementing the culture of the Predators as indispensable in the Predator franchise Trachtenberg has established.
3) Trachtenberg’s Predator Movies Span Radically Different Settings, Time Periods, & Cultures
As an off-shoot of Trachtenberg’s devotion to Predator culture, he’s also made the cultures of the humans they do battle with equally important, and in fact, more front and center than the Predator franchise has ever seen. Predator 2 and Predators both dropped hints to how long the Predators have been hunting on Earth, with the aforementioned flintlock pistol from the former and Yakuza enforcer Hanzo (Louis Ozawa Changchien) discovering a Samurai katana on the Predator’s game preserve planet in the latter. These elements (and even the brief flashback to Predators being revered as gods among the ancient population of Antarctica in Alien vs. Predator) have been the very bedrock of Trachtenberg’s Predator movies.
Both Prey and Killer of Killers take place in period settings, and focus on protagonists from wildly different cultures and time periods battling the Predators with the their own methods, weaponry, and warrior codes long before the alien’s contemporary hunts on Earth. In turn, Predator: Badlands is also taking the Predator franchise several centuries into the future for the first time, with its own collection of human characters playing into the story. Even with the Predators being the title characters of the franchise, Trachtenberg has recognized from the start how equally important humans and the eras and cultures they originate from are to the Predator franchise’s world-building, as well.
4) Trachtenberg’s Predators Are Both Scary & Three-Dimensional Characters
The 1987 original Predator is often regarded as the epitome of ’80s action movie macho-manliness, but it is also genuinely unnerving and effective as a horror movie. With the Yautja a completely new movie monster at the time, Predator was able to emphasize just how terrifying a 7-foot tall alien hunter with an invisibility cloak could be even for a highly trained and armed military unit. Through Prey and Killer of Killers, Trachtenberg has really brought the Predator’s scariness back into the spotlight, the ravenous Feral Predator of Prey in particular being one of the scariest and most slasher movie-worthy hunters of the Predator franchise.
By the same token, Trachtenberg is also endeavoring to shine a surprisingly sympathetic and even heroic light on the Yautja for the first time through Dek’s role in Predator: Badlands. For the first time, audiences are being shown a Predator as the lead protagonist of a Predator movie, with Trachtenberg sending Dek on a redemption arc to prove his warrior’s worth after his exile from the Predator culture. More than they have been in decades, the Predators of Dan Trachtenberg’s revamping of the Predator franchise are not only able to chill audiences as frightening monster, but also embody relatable and even humanized characters.
5) The Predator Franchise Has Its First Recurring Protagonist
Despite 1987’s Predator being one of the highlights of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s career, the Predator franchise isn’t anchored to Dutch in the same way the The Terminator franchise is to Schwarzenegger’s T-800 (Dutch’s return is several Predator video games, the canoncity of which is debatable, notwithstanding). Each Predator movie has focused on a different human protagonist taking the lead against their installment’s Yautja hunters, but this is also where Trachtenberg has made another big change to the Predator franchise with his introduction of Amber Midthunder’s Naru in Prey, along with her end credits scene return in Predator: Killer of Killers.
As a skilled warrior in her own right, Midthunder’s Naru clearly helped elevate Prey to the franchise revival that it became, but even in her brief return in Killer of Killers in which she is kept in cryostasis by the Predators, Naru is a game-changing Predator character as the first recurring one. This revelation makes it entirely possible (and indeed seemingly quite likely) for Naru to be seen again in future Predator movies to include Predator: Badlands. Moreover, Naru’s return also opens the door for numerous other Predator protagonists to return themselves. If Arnold’s Dutch does indeed return to battle the Predators again in the future, it will all be thanks to Trachtenberg establishing Naru as the first Predator hero or heroine to return for round two.
Predator: Killer of Killers is available to stream on Hulu, and Predator: Badlands will be released in theaters on November 7th.
