There’s no Marvel here at Comic-Con this year, but Disney has a one-two punch of 20th Century Studios’ Predator: Badlands, followed by Tron: Ares.
Before the first 15 minutes were shown, the Badlands panel began with one of the Predator warriors coming on stage and scanning the Hall H audience with his uber-multi-color-vision (the projection of what he saw, projected on the screen). Suddenly he spots the moderator, filmmaker Kevin Smith.
The director joked, “I don’t speak Predator yowchun speak, but I’m pretty sure he said something about the Jeffrey Epstein files!”
Smith also teased whether Trachtenberg will be the Alien vs. Predator guy, which drew great cheers from the crowd.
Appearing on stage were Trachtenberg, Elle Fanning, Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi and VFX maestro Alec Gillis. In Badlands, a young Predator outcast from his clan finds an unlikely ally on his journey in search of the ultimate adversary. It’s the first time that a Predator has been a protagonist in the franchise.
“It has so much heart and emotion. Prey definitely had that, but hat made [Badlands] unique is there are no humans in this film. I play a synthetic android. Dimtrius is a predator,” Fanning said of the script. “There’s an unlikely friendship among these two characters. I will say I do play two parts in the film. There are two characters that I play.”
“We shot in New Zealand. There are practical effects. It’s not like you’re acting against a tennis ball,” the actress added. She also told the crowd to great cheers that it was her first time in Hall H.
In the first 15 minutes of the film, we find older predator brother Kwei and his younger brother Yutja. Yutja is need of manning up. After they tussle, it’s decided that the younger has to select his prey. However, father arrives to the barren desert canyon planet and Yutja learns that he was suppose to be killed by older brother. Yutja is trapped by his father, but saved by his brother who ultimately confronts the father in a fight in which the older son is not the stronger.
Trachtenberg wowed with the franchise with his Predator movie, Prey, on Hulu in 2022. Fans and the media loved it so much, they wondered why it never went theatrical (alas, it was the streaming era of former Disney CEO Bob Chapek). Predator: Badlands happens on Nov. 7 exclusively in theatres.
The entire Predator franchise started in 1987 in the John McTiernan directed, Arnold Schwarzenegger starring original. The star has never returned to the franchise. In the 38 year run of Predator there were also two crossover films with Ridley Scott’s Alien franchise,