Dan Trachtenberg has revitalized the Predator franchise to phenomenal results, and it makes Trachtenberg’s previously announced Waterworld TV series a very exciting legacy sequel possibility. Prior to Trachtenberg’s first movie in the Predator franchise, 2022’s Prey, he was announced as executive producer on a Waterworld TV series back in the summer of 2021, though it seems the news of it was made a little too hastily. Per Trachtenberg himself in an interview with Collider, the director clarified that status of the Waterworld project, stating “The producers of that had a conversation with me and then sort of announced it or mentioned it in a way that was a little bit premature, so I haven’t really gone any further into what that is or was.”
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While that’s an unfortunate update on Trachtenberg’s involvement with Waterworld, his work on the Predator franchise is proof all its own of the potential such a continuation of the 1995 sea-faring adventure would have. Trachtenberg’s work on Predator: Killer of Killers has already facilitated the potential returns of numerous Predator stars, and with the franchise’s next big-screen installment, Predator: Badlands, also charting an exciting path that even seems to be reconnecting it with the Alien franchise, it all illustrates just how expansive and captivating Trachtenberg’s Waterworld could be if it were actually realized.
Dan Trachtenberg’s Waterworld TV Series Pitch, Explained
Per the 2021 announcement of the Waterworld TV series, the only major detail about the concept of the show is that it was intended to take place 20 years after the ending of the movie. On the surface (pun), that’s not a lot to go on; however, the ending of Waterworld points to a lot of potential for what the series could be. Specifically, with the discovery of Dryland, an interval of 20 years sets up a lot of room for the flooded Earth to have changed.
While Dryland only has a human population of four people at the end of Waterworld, the map to its location and the navigation skills of Gregor (Michael Jeter) would have enabled the group to set sail and reach other human settlements on surviving atolls. In this way, word would gradually get out that Dryland had been discovered to both peaceful atoll populations and other sea-faring factions of Smokers and Slavers, with the former Atollers able to fortify Dryland into a stable human settlement able to fend off attack. Moreover, Kevin Costner’s Mariner could also easily find his way back to Dryland and re-unite with Enola (Tima Majorino), Helen (Jeanne Tripplehorn), and other humans to defend a potentially thriving human settlement on Dryland from attack.
Trachtenberg’s Predator Movies Have Taken the Franchise to New Heights
What makes the idea of Trachtenberg tackling a Waterworld continuation particularly exciting is how much of a remarkable brand revival his tenure on the Predator franchise has been. 2022’s Prey drew acclaim as one of the most visceral and gripping installments of the Predator franchise yet, with the movie also introducing a new Yautja hunter in the Feral Predator and planting a tantalizing Easter egg in the flintlock pistol from Predator 2, shown in its original time period in Prey.
Trachtenberg subsequently took the seeds planted in Prey and grew them into a voluminous tree in Predator: Killer of Killers. The return of the flintlock pistol in the animated anthology was only the tip of the iceberg, with Killer of Killers also bringing human warriors from centuries apart into a gladiatorial showdown on another world, facilitated by the Predators cryogenically freezing select warriors. With the reveal of Prey‘s Naru as one of them in the movie’s end-credits scene and Predator: Badlands doing world-building of its own with its future setting and Alien franchise connective tissue (which also seemingly involves setting up a new Aliens vs. Predator crossover), Trachtenberg’s stewardship of Predator has built out the Yautja universe more than the Predator franchise has experienced in decades. Trachtenberg’s talent for mapping out a sci-fi universe to greater expanses could also really be something for a Waterworld TV series.
Waterworld Is Ripe for the Same Kind of World-Building Trachtenberg Has Done for Predator
While Waterworld places more emphasis on how much human civilization has been literally submerged in the post-apocalyptic Earth, what world-building the movie does do has long been primed to be expounded upon. Indeed, the 1997 comic book sequel Waterworld: Children of Leviathan does exactly that with its revelation of underwater human settlements, the Jabba the Hutt-like villain Leviathan, and new twists thrown into the nature of the flooding of the Earth and the Mariner’s origins. Trachtenberg applying the same approach to building out the Waterworld universe that he’s done on Predator could go in so many different directions from other gilled sea-faring warriors to a thriving human populace on Dryland.
As unfortunate as it is that the announcement of the Waterworld TV series was a case of jumping the gun, that doesn’t mean the potential for a Predator-style revival of the once-maligned but gradually more appreciated Waterworld isn’t there. With the success Dan Trachtenberg’s had on Predator and the ideas he has for Waterworld, hopefully his concept for a Waterworld TV series continuation is pulled from the depths before too long and given the greenlight to set sail for a new adventure on Dryland.
Predator: Killer of Killers is available to stream on Hulu, and Predator: Badlands will be released in theaters on November 7th.
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