Insider secrets from the NZ set of Predator: Badlands

While some productions are public knowledge, others are closely guarded, filmed under mysterious working titles with everyone sworn to secrecy. Predator: Badlands was one of them. Very few people knew about the latest instalment in the famous science fiction franchise, beyond the people working on the production.

Executive producer Ben Rosenblatt isn’t new to science fiction – he’s worked on Star Wars, Star Trek and Snowpiercer, as well as the last outing in the Predator franchise, Prey – but even he was surprised about how little had leaked from the production.

“We’re really trying to surprise everyone,” he told us.

We were cloistered in a room and, after signing non-disclosure agreements, he revealed details of the plot. Asking our group what we knew already was met with a chorus of “Elle Fanning” (her involvement had been confirmed by Variety in June 2024). She’s the backpack in question; Thia, one of the Weyland-Yutani corporation’s synths (synthetic humans), who was “severed in half”, explained Rosenblatt.

She’s strapped to the protagonist Dek for much of the film. His mission is to “find, kill and bring back the unkillable beast” to prove himself; hers is to find her legs.

Realising Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi has the X factor

It can’t be easy to come across as charming and warm when dressed in the intimidating, otherworldly attire of the Predators, but even though Schuster-Koloamatangi had come straight from set to talk to us, his charisma was palpable. We had a first glimpse of it in 2021’s The Panthers where his performance as the young, idealistic Will ‘Ilolahia was a breakout role. Predator: Badlands is his biggest and most physical role to date, and he said it required a month of hard training with Jacob Tomuri and his team prior to filming to be ready for the action.

Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi in The Panthers.

Taking on a big international production and physical role was a “bit hectic”, he told the Herald, but not a huge departure from his past work. “I feel like if you’ve been on one movie set you’ve been on all of them, so in terms of the actual job, it was fine,” he said.

“Playing a non-human really tested my acting skills though, everything was different.”

That was the hardest part, but he really enjoyed the process of expanding his repertoire and embodying the character physically.

“Becoming something totally different to what I am was really cool.”

Witnessing Elle Fanning in action

There had been rumours of Elle Fanning being spotted around Auckland during filming, and she was there in the flesh the day we visited, shooting a scene in a crashed Yautja spaceship.

Tracer lights on the craft illuminated the set as she picked her way through the sloping vehicle, clad in the Ngila Dickson-designed white jumpsuit. The actress plays synths Thia and Tessa, identical counterparts, and she looked luminous, even in the raw footage.

Fanning’s a smooth operator (walking on set is harder than it looks – we tried), and she was reportedly very “on board” with the whole production, according to hair and makeup designer Susie Glass, who told us how Fanning drove from Auckland to the shoot location at 1am on her day off for a makeup test.

Seeing a Weyland-Yutani spaceship

For anyone who’s grown up watching Alien, the prospect of setting foot in a Weyland-Yutani asset is a bucket-list. It’s surreal to see the logo in the flesh, wandering past the hold of a Weyland-Yutani spaceship, where a sweatshirt was incongruously slung on a yellow rail by the airlock. (The company’s presence, and that of its synths, is an explicit crossover between the Alien and Predator franchises.)

Discovering the predator is the hero

Another surprise. Dek’s the protagonist. Rosenblatt said they wanted audiences to feel for Dek, see him as a hero. Something of an outcast, he’s small compared to the rest of the Yautja species – the predators of the franchise lore – and needs to prove himself. He also needs to emote; easier said than done when there’s his species’ infamous mandables to deal with.

The solution to that was Weta Digital, which used CGI to animate Dek’s face. Schuster-Koloamatangi’s facial expressions had to be exaggerated, which was different to what he was used to. “A lot of acting is subtle, and I still incorporate that with Dek, but everything else has to be bigger.”

Meeting Alec Gillis

An FX expert and creature designer, Alec Gillis’ lengthy film credits span everything from Death Becomes Her to Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and he was part of the team that did the very first Alien movie.

Rosenblatt called him “the godfather of the franchise”, and it was Gillis himself who demonstrated the combination of physical and digital effects they were using to bring the film’s many alien creatures to life.

Seeing the local film industry do what they do best

The set was efficient and orderly in a way that boggles your mind. There was also plenty of Kiwi ingenuity. The spacecraft we saw was brought to life through old and new techniques, including casting and the more traditional carving. The boat builders on the crew lent their unique skills to the crafting of the spaceship.

“It’s better for us to go and speak to glassmakers, cabinetmakers, people that create these surfaces for real, and introduce them to the film industry,” explained production designer Ra Vincent. “A lot of industry people come from real-world backgrounds.”

Rosenblatt was effusive with praise for the Kiwi crew.

“They have such a core passion for what they do, and a care for being positive and being productive,” he said. “And a collective ambition to care for one another.”

The production spent 30 days shooting in remote locations around the country.

“I was in awe of every moment we were there,” Rosenblatt said. “To be in such a beautiful country, with such wonderful people, but then to constantly be surprised by the places you go… It creates an overall feeling of otherworldliness and magic; it’s hard not to get swept up in it.”

Predator: Badlands is in cinemas from today

Insider secrets from the NZ set of Predator: Badlands

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