With a third Predator film under his belt, Dan Trachtenberg included a subtle Alien crossover with his latest entry in the franchise.
At Monday’s premiere of Predator: Badlands, the 2x Emmy-nominated writer and director explained how the worlds continue to merge in the movie, which premieres Nov. 7 in theaters, also noting how it differs from previous crossovers Alien vs. Predator (2004) and Aliens vs Predator – Requiem (2007).
“I would say, Badlands itself is definitely a crossover in that we have the Weyland-Yutani corporation as a huge part of the movie,” he said on the red carpet at TCL Chinese Theatre. “Elle Fanning plays a Weyland-Yutani synth.”
Trachtenberg continued, “And I think, sometimes there’s a tendency for a ‘versus’ movie to be grabbing all the action figures and smashing them together, and I thought it was really cool to just take an element from one franchise and fuse it with this one. So yeah, they’re a huge part of the movie.”
In Predator: Badlands, a young Predator from the Yautja clan named Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) is cast out, teaming up with a damaged synth named Thia (Fanning) to prove himself and defeat the ultimate adversary.
Producer Ben Rosenblatt explained adding an element from the Alien universe was a “super organic” decision, given the franchises’ “spiritual connection.” They also didn’t want to put a human in the film, since the audience would immediately identify with that character, whereas Dek is supposed to be the protagonist.
“So instead, [Trachtenberg] was like, ‘I would love to have humanoid characters without having humans,’ and he was like, ‘I think we need robots.’ And then, of course Dan was like, ‘I know who makes robots: Weyland-Yutani,’” he explained. “And then it was a natural collision of the two worlds.”
Rosenblatt also teased that Arnold Schwarzenegger has met with Trachtenberg multiple times about potentially reprising his role as Dutch from the original Predator (1987) in an upcoming sequel, after the character made an animated cameo in Predator: Killer of Killers earlier this year.
Elle Fanning and Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi in 20th Century Studios’ ‘Predator: Badlands’ (20th Century Studios)
“Obviously, the holy grail of Predator movies would be getting Arnold back in there,” he said. “And it’s always been something in the back of our minds that it would be really great to see him come back to this franchise that he’s made iconic, and that’s made him iconic.
“So, he’s been really wonderful. Arnold and Dan have met a couple of times now. He’s been really interested in what we’re doing, he’s a real fan of what we’ve done so far, from what I understand. And we’re really excited. After Predator: Badlands comes out, we’ll see and have more conversations. Hopefully, we’ll have a chance to do something with Arnold, because that would be awesome,” added Rosenblatt.