{"id":83008,"date":"2025-10-16T21:23:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T21:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/83008\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T21:23:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T21:23:07","slug":"predator-badlands-place-in-franchise-timeline-confirmed-and-it-makes-sense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/83008\/","title":{"rendered":"Predator: Badland’s Place in Franchise Timeline Confirmed (and It Makes Sense)"},"content":{"rendered":"

After experiencing tremendous success on Hulu with projects like Prey and Predator: Killer of Killers, the Predator franchise is gearing up for its big return to movie theaters. November sees the release of Predator: Badlands<\/a>, which has sparked a lot of conversation due to its connections to the Alien franchise. Director Dan Trachtenberg has taken full advantage of the fact that both iconic sci-fi\/horror properties exist in the same universe, as main character Thia (Elle Fanning) is a Weyland-Yutani synthetic. In an age of shared cinematic universes, fans can\u2019t help but wonder how Predator: Badlands fits into the larger tapestry of the Alien and Predator timelines, but it sounds like it will be a fairly self-contained installment.<\/p>\n

Speaking with IGN<\/a>, Trachtenberg explained where Predator: Badlands fits in to the universe\u2019s continuity. \u201cThere was a lot going on when we were making this movie. [Alien: Romulus] was not yet out, and I hadn\u2019t seen it yet. And Alien: Earth, I was aware of happening but not sure where that was going to end up,\u201d he said. \u201cSo we decided to set ourselves well into the future. So all the stuff that has happened would have happened before our movie \u2026 [and I\u2019m] cognizant of how in this day and age, with all the media that we have, some of it can feel like homework. And you have to remind yourself where in a timeline does this sit between this movie and that movie. And I really did not want that to be the case with Badlands.\u201d<\/p>\n

Predator: Badlands Took a Simple Approach to Franchise Continuity (and It\u2019s For the Best)<\/p>\n

\"ElleImage Courtesy of 20th Century Studios<\/p>\n

Some fans may be disappointed to hear Badlands doesn\u2019t connect narratively to other recent franchise installments, but it\u2019s encouraging to hear Trachtenberg\u2019s approach. For starters, it means his top priority when developing Badlands was to make an excellent moviegoing experience that stands on its own merits and is accessible to all interested viewers. In the past, Trachtenberg has said he wanted to avoid \u201csmashing the action figures together\u201d syndrome, and he took time to ensure the Alien connections felt organic to the story he was trying to tell<\/a>. Badlands notably doesn\u2019t feature any human characters, so it makes sense for there to be a Weyland-Yutani robot partnering up with a Yautja.<\/p>\n

Predator: Badlands is also the first Predator movie to debut in theaters in seven years, so it needs to be able to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. Unlike Prey and Killer of Killers, there will be a box office element to keep tabs on when examining whether or not Badlands is a success. With that in mind, it makes a lot of sense for Badlands to operate as a standalone movie that doesn\u2019t require any dreaded homework to understand. It\u2019s plausible that not everyone going to see Badlands on opening weekend will have seen Alien: Romulus or Alien: Earth, so it\u2019s better to keep Badlands separated as opposed to running the risk of confusing general viewers. It\u2019s been so long since the last Alien vs. Predator movie that some moviegoers may not even be aware the two properties are connected.<\/p>\n

In addition to benefiting Predator: Badlands, Trachtenberg\u2019s approach should also be great for other in-development projects in the Alien\/Predator universe. A sequel to Alien: Romulus is currently being worked on<\/a>, and Sigourney Weaver has had discussions about reprising Ellen Ripley again<\/a>. The creative teams behind those films (or a second season of Alien: Earth) won\u2019t have to worry about Predator: Badlands impacting the stories they want to tell, allowing them maximum freedom. While there\u2019s still an overall continuity and lore to adhere to when working in franchise sandboxes, it can be refreshing to know you have the leeway to largely do your own thing instead of making sure everything lines up perfectly with another movie.<\/p>\n

Shared universes provide plenty of exciting opportunities for character crossovers fans have only dreamed of before, but sometimes, filmmakers lose sight of the fact that it\u2019s most important to make quality movies that work on their own merits. That\u2019s how you develop a connection with the audience, which can open the door for bigger and better things down the line. If Predator: Badlands is a hit, then 20th Century Studios will surely be interested in a follow-up that can expand upon Trachtenberg\u2019s ideas. There seems to be interest in a new kind of Alien vs. Predator film<\/a>, so perhaps once audiences are slowly reintegrated into this shared universe, that can be the next event.<\/p>\n

What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the\u00a0ComicBook Forum<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After experiencing tremendous success on Hulu with projects like Prey and Predator: Killer of Killers, the Predator franchise…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[36382,156,409,111,139,69,53294,63636],"class_list":["post-83008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-dan-trachtenberg","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-predator-badlands","tag-regular-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}