Predator: Badlands is generating renewed hype now that it’s streaming on Hulu, and fans are discussing what the future of the franchise looks like. Not only did director Dan Trachtenberg achieve the feat of making the first Predator movies where the titular alien hunter was the protagonist, but he also did a crossover between the Predator and Alien franchises that was more seamlessly exciting and fitting than the actual Alien vs. Predator crossover films that were dedicated to merging the franchises.
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So what is the Predator franchise building to? And how does Alien fit into that shared universe picture? And what about that 3rd sci-fi film that some fans have long theorized is also playing in this same shared universe sandbox?
Alien & Predator Shared Universe Explained
Predator: Badlands isn’t the first time the Alien and Predator franchises have crossed over. Ridley Scott’s sci-fi-horror nightmare first began in 1979 with Alien; the first Predator didn’t hit the screen until nearly a decade later (1987). However, by the 1990s, the Predator franchise was a cult hit while the Alien franchise was floundering. Predator 2 was released in 1990, and it started the first mainstream wave of Alien and Predator crossovers.
One climactic scene in the film featured Danny Glover’s protagonist, Mike Harrington, battling a Yautja hunter aboard the alien’s ship. That ship had a trophy case with many collected skulls from prior hunts – including one of Alien‘s xenomorphs. After Predator 2, the imaginations of fans everywhere were sparked.
The Alien and Predator franchises wouldn’t come together in a movie until Director Paul W.S. Anderson’s Alien vs. Predator in 2004, and its sequel, Requiem, in 2007. Before that, however, the idea had been presented to diehard fans in many lines of Dark Horse Comics story arcs. It started with the cult-classic Machiko Noguchi Saga in November 1989. That series followed the titular human protagonist (Japanese woman Machiko Noguchi), who becomes an honorary member of the Predator race, the Yautja, after first surviving a skirmish between a Yautja hunting party and a xenomorph outbreak. Many AvP comics, novels, and video games followed throughout the 1990s, as the general concept of “Alien vs. Predator” became a regular part of both fandoms.
However, 20th Century Fox didn’t have the vision for doing a feature film blending the two franchises. A film called The Hunt: Alien vs. Predator is now famous for getting rejected, and several other attempts at doing a crossover film all stalled in development or were passed on by the studio. Anderson’s film finally broke through as both Alien and Predator began to lose their respective powers as box office draws. And yet, again, what seemed like an easy win at the box office turned out to be far less than what was expected. AvP (2004) took in a modest $177 million (on a budget of almost $70 million), but also angered the fanbase, with its PG-13 rating, CGI xenomorphs, and flimsy story. Requiem was even worse, earning just $140 million and earning the dishonor of being widely regarded as one of the worst horror movies ever shot.
Dan Trachtenberg Always Made Alien Part of His New Predator
Trachtenberg burst into the Predator franchise with his “secret” prequel film Prey, which was released on Hulu in 2022. The film was such a big cult hit that Disney and 20th Century Studios made Trachtenberg the shepherd of the Predator universe, going forward. One thing the filmmaker did from the very beginning of his run was to weave Alien lore into his Predator movies.
In Prey, human protagonist Naru (Amber Midthunder) is aided in her battle against a Yautja hunter (in 1719) by a flintlock pistol she takes from Italian translator Raphael Adolini – the same pistol that eventually lands in the hands of Mike Harrington. The pistol resurfaces again in Trachtenberg’s animated film Predator: Killer of Killers, as WWII pilot John J. Torres is given the weapon in a major Yautja tournament held on the aliens’ homeworld. With that single prop (the pistol), Trachtenberg has created a chain that connects all of his Predator works to Predator 2, and therefore, to the Alien franchise, as well.
Predator Is Building Toward More Than Just Another AvP Crossover Event
With Predator: Badlands, Trachtenberg jumped from using small connective threads through props to fully integrating Alien into his Predator world. The story of Dek quickly crosses over into Alien territory when he meets Thia (Elle Fanning), a damaged android commissioned by the Weyland-Yutani corporation – the main corporate entity of the Alien franchise. If you know where to look, Badlands has all kinds of Alien Easter eggs, from the “MU/TH/UR” supercomputer system that runs the Weyland-Yutani synths, to the power-loader that Thia’s corrupted “sister” android Tessa uses in the final battle (an Aliens callback).
At this point, it’s clear that Trachtenberg has big plans for the Predator franchise and that Alien is a part of it, but that’s not the only big event on the table. Killer of Killers was a game-changing chapter of the franchise that revealed a Yautja clan is snatching up the survivors of past films and keeping them frozen in cryo-stasis for special tournaments. That includes Glover’s Mike Harrington, Midthunder’s Naru, and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Dutch – who are all expected to reprise their roles in some form. Badlands has set the stage for Dek and Thia having further problems with both the Yautja and Weyland-Yutani, so where is this all really going?
Trachtenberg has recently addressed the future, saying, “I am simultaneously figuring out all of the next steps for the Predator franchise,” during an interview with io9. “I’m in this moment that I was in when Prey came out, where I was like, ‘What do I do next?’ and got very excited about a Predator protagonist and got very excited about an animated movie with multiple time periods, and then they just happened to go at the same time. And so that’s where I’m at with Predator now, is, ‘Oh my God, there are so many exciting things we can do.’”
For now, Alien doesn’t seem as concerned with crossovers as Predator is. At the time of writing this, the sequel to the movie reboot Alien: Romulus is not expected to have any Predator elements, while the Alien: Earth TV series by Noah Hawley is carving out its own (very unique) lane of the franchise.
How Does Blade Runner Fit Into This?
Predator: Badlands‘ subplot between Thia and Tessa has some fans wondering if Dan Trachtenberg was also dipping his toe into the Blade Runner franchise. If you don’t know, the Alien: 20th Anniversary Edition DVD released in 1999 included a biography of “Dallas” (Tom Skerrit’s), captain of the USCSS Nostromo, who died along with the rest of the crew (except Ellen Ripley) in the original Alien. Dallas’s bio mentions that he previously worked for the “Tyrell Corporation” from Blade Runner before he took his position at Weyland-Yutani; that was enough for fans to look at it like Predator 2 – i.e., proof that Ridley Scott imagined the dystopian, corporate-controlled futures of Alien and Blade Runner as being the same world.
It’s been a harder stretch to connect Blade Runner and Alien in any significant way – but not for lack of fans trying it. The synths from Alien have always had their own subplots in the film, while Blade Runner was all about the awakening of synthetic humans who are being exploited by space colonists. Predator: Badlands definitely echoed those themes in Thia’s story, so don’t count Trachtenberg out on finally making this franchise trifecta work.
You can stream all Predator movies on Hulu-Disney+. Discuss your favorite installment or what you want to see in the franchise’s future, over on the ComicBook Forum!
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