Predator: Badlands is finally here, and Prey director Dan Trachtenberg hasn't left us disappointed. Following the animated anthology flick Predator: Killer of Killers – which we gave the big five stars to in our review – we've long been hungry for more Yautja... fun? And this second 2025 release is an action-filled wild ride of a time.
However, before you decide to spend your time and cash, you may be wondering if this is really the movie for you. There is a lot to love about Predator: Badlands, but if you are a purist who regularly watches all the Predator movies in order, this one may leave you baffled, as it takes the franchise in new directions.
Predator: Badlands release date
Predator: Badlands was released in UK and US theaters on November 7. It's also the second Predator movie to come out in 2025, following the release of Dan Trachtenberg and co-director Joshua Wassung's animated feature Predator: Killer of Killers in June.
Filming kicked off in New Zealand on August 27, 2024, and concluded in late October. Trachtenberg once stated that every single shot of the film features VFX work, which explains why its release date is over a year out from the wrapping of principal photography.
Predator: Badlands reviews
At the time of writing, the reviews for Predator: Badlands are mostly positive, with the film holding an impressive 86% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The general comments from critics are that it's a fun movie, but also one that won't make purists happy, as it presents the Yautja less as a horror figure now and more as an action set piece.
So if you watch Predator for that relentless stalker, and cat and mouse hunter dynamic, then you may not be too pleased. However, if you are fine with leaving the gore and scares behind in favour of a unique character study instead, you'll have a great time.
In our Predator: Badlands review, our Jordan Farley also gave the film a good 3.5 rating out of 5, praising the fresh take on the franchise and some creative action set pieces. However, we also did miss the gore, and pointed out that the PG-13 rating of the film "dulls Predator's killer edge".
Stay tuned as more verdicts and reviews head our way.
Predator: Badlands trailer
The first full trailer for Predator: Badlands landed online on July 21. It boasts a surprisingly upbeat tone, as Elle Fanning's Weyland-Yutani robot Thia teases exiled Yautja Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi), who's hellbent on killing the "ultimate adversary" and proving himself to his kind.
The first shot is interesting, in particular, depicting Thia linked up to a MU/TH/UR mainframe with the signature '062578'. In the original Alien movie, the ship's AI was MU/TH/UR 6000... Later, we see Dek go up against winged beasts, foes with powerful tentacles, and a giant, furry creature. "Here, you're not the predator. You're the prey," Thia warns him, to which he angrily replies in his native language: "I am prey to none!"
Stay tuned right until the very end to catch a glimpse of a machine that's reminiscent of the powerloader Sigourney Weaver's Ripley fought the xenomorph Queen with in Aliens.
In early October 2025, the final trailer was unveiled, featuring much of the same footage – hardly surprising, really, given the secrecy surrounding the movie! That said, it did give us our first look at Elle Fanning's second character, Tessa, Thia's "sister", who's sporting a quintessentially all-black villain outfit (and bleached eyebrows) in the clip. Check it out below...
Predator: Badlands cast
Predator: Badlands main cast are Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi and Elle Fanning. The former plays Dek, a young Yautja outcast who's hellbent on proving himself to his clan, while the latter is on board as artificial human Thia.
"I've made the comparison that it's like Chewbacca and C-3PO: The Movie. But C-3PO is the nervous Nellie; the fun of Thia is that she is really unflappable," director Dan Trachtenberg previously told SFX magazine. "She is positive under any circumstance. [She's] a really fun character to be stuck with a Predator, a Yautja that is a real hard-ass and doesn't really want to talk too much, and is more like Clint Eastwood or Mad Max, or Conan even. So they're made for a really fun pairing and something that we haven't seen in Predator, but also in the Alien franchise."
Here is the main Predator: Badlands cast list:
- Elle Fanning as Thia and Tessa
- Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi as Dek and Njohrr / Apex Predator
- Mike Homik as Kwei
- Rohinal Nayaran as Bud
- Reuben De Jong
- Cameron Brown
Predator: Badlands plot
In previous Predator films, the Yautja have been villainous figures who terrorize our (more) human heroes, but Predator: Badlands shakes things up by centering the titular creature as its protagonist.
We won't get into specifics here for spoilers (read our Predator: Badlands ending explained guide), but we can tell you that the movie partly takes place on Yautja Prime, the Predators' homeworld, which made its onscreen debut in Predator: Killer of Killers, and sees lead character Dek align himself with a Weyland-Yutani bot named Thia after he's cast out from his tribe. Together, the twosome set out on a treacherous journey to take on the most fearsome enemy – and prove Dek as an ultimate hunter.
"This was a little bit inspired by [Shadow of the Colossus] in terms of wanting to see the Predator with someone else, this kind of character with the opposite of him," Trachtenberg explained to SFX. "He's very laconic. She is not. She's capable in ways that he is not. But also physically, she's got a real thing that I'm so excited for you guys to see."
Given Thia's manufacturer being Weyland-Yutani and some Alien easter eggs already on display (and a blink-and-you'll-miss-it glimpse at what looks like a Xenomorph skull in the teaser), we were all speculating as to how much the film will crossover with the Alien franchise – a theory amplified by the fact that one specific trailer for 2025 series Alien: Earth features a very Predator-sounding snarl.
During the movie's panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2025, Trachtenberg explained that while there will be connections between the two franchises, they will be "elegantly" incorporated, so as not to detract from the Predator being the main focus this time around. In fact, Predator: Badlands doesn't have a lot of tie-ins with Aline apart from the Weyland-Yutani inclusion in the plot.
"I think sometimes people who are dabbling in cinematic universes, there's a seduction to grab all the action figures and smush them together. And I really didn't want to do that, and really wanted to make sure that if we ever do something, it would be a little bit more elegant," he said.
Perhaps if a Predator: Badlands 2 gets the greenlight, we'll see more crossovers, fingers crossed!
What's next for the Predator franchise?
Now that Predator: Badlands is out in the wild, if things were up to Trachtenberg, another movie should be on the cards... though he's keeping coy on what that movie would look like exactly.
"After Prey came out, and I started thinking about sequel stuff, there were three ideas that I had. Killers is one, Badlands is two, and the third one is... something else," the filmmaker tells SFX magazine in its latest issue. "The reason why I felt possessed to make them and sort of why I rushed – I did two at once because I could do, I could multitask with animation – was because I was so eager to get to the third thing.
"There's a lot of cool ideas out there and none of them are just like, 'Oh, we have to say the next part of this story because it was successful,'" he continues. "All of it is like, 'Whoa, no one has done that in sci-fi. No one has done that in Predator. No one's done that with the creature,' all of those ideas are generated from that instinct. So, yeah, there is definitely a third thing that I'd love to get to when Badlands is finished." We're already excited.
For more, check out our guide to the most exciting upcoming movies heading our way.
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