Predator: Badlands Director Sheds New Insight on Franchise’s Newest Hero

Back in 1987’s Predator, audiences witnessed the absolute horror that the titular antagonist wrought on a group of mercenaries, igniting nightmares in countless audiences. In the years since, the beast has continued to set its sights on targets across multiple movies and throughout other mediums, and despite the terror it causes, viewers are still compelled to witness the havoc it creates. With the upcoming Predator: Badlands, filmmaker Dan Trachtenberg is paying off a wish fans have had for decades, which is to depict the monster as the protagonist, as opposed to as a villain. Predator: Badlands hits theaters on November 7th.

“Let me tell you, this guy, Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi is the actor’s name. We had a very specific casting for [main character] Dek. We thought we would want a stunt guy and this was a real opportunity, because all the other Predators need to be like seven-foot-six. It’s very specific people that aren’t often trained stuntmen,” Trachtenberg pointed out during a press event, which ComicBook attended. “They happen to be that size and they decide to get into this business.”

He continued, “[Prey star] Dane [DiLiegro] did want to be in the business, but he also was an ex-basketball player, he was the one who played the feral in Prey. Here, it was the first time I was like, ‘Oh, we can get a proper stunt guy to be the guy who can move in the ways…’ And at one of our castings, we had a number of stunt guys and then this dude Dimitrius came up and the way he moved just had a great swashbuckle to it. He just was so cool. We set up a little physical obstacle course. That’s how we cast him. Then he did some dramatic stuff from the movie and it was awesome. I was not at all prepared for what he actually does, it’s so … I could not believe, how did we luck into this guy?”

[RELATED – First Predator: Badlands Teaser Puts the Iconic Hunter in the Spotlight]

In addition to fully embracing the physicality of the role, Schuster-Koloamatangi had to be able to convey the complex language of Dek, which was created specifically for this film.

“It’s crazy that we found him. Then he gave so much to the movie and learned the language and, I mean, that language is, not everyone can do it. I can’t do it,” the filmmaker admitted. “I can’t even pretend. You have to make a whatever [click sound] in the back, and he can just do it. He would learn it that morning, if we changed lines or whatever, and it was incredible.”

Schuster-Koloamatangi also helped drive the facial performance of Dek, as Trachtenberg recalled, “It’s why there’s some of those dots there, he’s totally driving the animation. But then also, and this is important to say, is that it’s very much also shared with animators that are … if something in the look didn’t quite hit what we needed to … we’re really in this process where we’re discovering how to animate this face. It’s very different than Gollum or [Planet of the Apes] that are a one-to-one translation to a human face. They’ve got these mandibles, and we just discovered the other day, whenever Dimitrius blinks, we might not want to see the Predator blink. That might just be an eyebrow movement, and we tried that. Like, ‘Oh yeah, that feels more like that emotion.’ And how to make his smiles and snarls and whatever work with the mandibles, they’re different than the mouth inside. It’s all been very tricky and we’re, thankfully, really finding our way through it.”

Predator: Badlands, which stars Elle Fanning and Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, is set in the future on a remote planet, where a young Predator (Schuster-Koloamatangi), outcast from his clan, finds an unlikely ally in Thia (Fanning) and embarks on a treacherous journey in search of the ultimate adversary. The film is directed by Dan Trachtenberg and produced by John Davis, Dan Trachtenberg, Marc Toberoff, Ben Rosenblatt, and Brent O’Connor.

Predator: Badlands hits theaters on November 7th.