A Major Piece of Predator Lore Is Finally Made Canon in Hulu’s New Movie

The Predator franchise has been a sci-fi/horror standout since 1987, and yet most fans still don’t know the answer to a major question about the franchise lore: What is the actual name of the Predator species? The battle-hardened aliens have previously appeared in five of their franchise films, as well as two crossover films with the xenomorphs of Alien, but unfortunately, no one has survived long enough or gotten close enough to the alien hunters or their technology to learn all that much about their nature and origins. It’s only in Hulu’s new animated film Predator: Killer of Killers that we finally get the long-awaited name-drop of the species at the center of the Predator movies: the Yautja.

The story of Predator: Killer of Killers follows three different warriors from three different periods (the Viking era, feudal Japan, and WWI), each of whom wins a vicious battle against a Yautja warrior, before being brought to an alien battleworld for a winner-take-all tournament. However, the opening sequence of Killer of Killers includes a title card that conveys the philosophy of the Predator race as they search the galaxy for worth prey: “Go forth among the stars and seek only the strongest prey. They shall be your trophy. Become the killer of killers. — Yautja Codex 0522/74”.

OFFICIAL REVIEW: Predator: Killer of Killers (on Hulu)

The Predators’ Name Has Been Revealed Before

That inscription is the first time we’ve seen the name of the alien race in Predator appear onscreen. However, it is not at all the first time we’ve seen the name appear, as it’s been floating around the lore for a few years now. The first time it is credited as being used is in the 1994 novel Aliens vs. Predator: Prey by S.D. Perry and Steve Perry, which was a spinoff of the 1990s Aliens vs. Predator comic series by Dark Horse. In that book, the Predators refer to themselves as “Yautja” (often pronounced “Yawt-ja” or “Ya-oot-chah”), and the term then began to circulate within novelizations that offered long-form stories from the Predators’ perspective, as well as within sites and forums where hardcore fans discussed and/or compiled the franchise lore.

With the Disney-Fox merger in 2019, Predator began a new run of 2020s comic book stories through Marvel Comics. Beginning in 2022, the different anthology-style comic story arcs have expanded the franchise lore in a big way, including cementing the species name “Yautja” as part of the official franchise canon. That said, comics are, like novelizations, a second (if not third) tier of a major franchise IP, and so the vast majority of Predator movie fans haven’t ever encountered the official species name until they start streaming Killer of Killers.

One of the animated anthology’s co-directors, Dan Trachtenberg, also directed the hit Predator prequel film Prey (2022). It’s clear that Trachtenberg has a vested interest in expanding the lore of the Yautja through the cinematic format; in fact, the filmmaker is about to take that mission forward by leaps and bounds with his next franchise project, Predator: Badlands, which opens in theaters in November. That film will make a Yautja hunter the protagonist of the story for the very first time, which makes it no coincidence that Killer of Killers is establishing the alien species’ name before that live-action feature hits theaters. And thanks to the connective threads between Prey, Killers of Killers, and some other major Predator films of the past, Trachtenberg is weaving a larger saga that could soon make Predator one of the great franchise universes there is.

You can stream Predator: Killer of Killers on Hulu. Predator: Badlands hits theaters on November 7th.