Predator: Badlands Keeps the Hunt Alive
Predator: Badlands delivers a fresh spin on the nearly 40-year-old franchise by delving deeper into the alien society at the heart of the franchise. Judging by the impressive box office performance, it’s a rare hit in an otherwise dismal movie season.
So much of Predator: Badlands is delightful entertainment in spite of its notable weaknesses. (20th Century Studios)
I’ve always enjoyed the Predator movies, starting with the incisive and thrilling first film released in 1987. Nobody could have appreciated more than me the fresh life writer-director Dan Trachtenberg injected into the franchise with Prey, released on Hulu back in 2022. Trachtenberg has continued to push the franchise’s narrative boundaries with the boldly designed animated anthology Predator: Killer of Killers, another straight-to-Hulu release from earlier this year.
Now his Predator: Badlands is actually pulling crowds into theaters. It’s an amazing feat, coming up with a hit film in these box-office doldrums that are once again inspiring think pieces about the death of the movies as a popular entertainment form.
Though Predator: Badlands is earning some opprobrium among die-hard fans who hate the way Trachtenberg keeps striking out into increasingly remote territory plot-wise. The concern is he’ll save the franchise only by destroying everything that defined the Predator films in the first place.
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