Prey Director Says Disney Had Zero Mandates, “It’s A Brutal, Intense, Very R-rated Movie”

When the announcement of Prey, the next entry in the Predator franchise, arrived it resulted in trepidation from some fans. Not because of the poor handling of the previous movie, Shane Black’s 2018 The Predator which nabbed just 33% on Rotten Tomatoes and only $51 million at the domestic box office, but because it was the first in the series to be released after the acquisition of 20th Century Fox by The Walt Disney Company. Considering the family friendly image of Disney, many assumed that the days of the Predator ripping out spines and skulls were long gone, but as director Dan Trachtenberg revealed to ComicBook.com in an exclusive interview, that never was a concern.

“The Disney thing did not affect the movie at all in terms of its content,” the 10 Cloverfield Lane director told us in a talk about the film’s new trailer. “That’s why I’m excited for this trailer to come out. And for people who were worried that was this gonna be PG-13, or was it gonna be ‘Disney-Made-Predator.’ It was a 20th Century movie throughout the entire experience. And then Disney has been awesome in receiving the reins of it and now delivering it out into the world, but there was never any mandate from them. I was terrified of some of the wording we had in the script and when they read it, I was like, ‘Oh no, are they gonna freak out over the descriptions of gore and stuff?’ But, no. It is a brutal, intense, very R-rated movie. And I’m excited for that to be dispelled, that Disney’s gonna do ‘Disney Things.’”

Producer Jhane Myers also offered the hilarious anecdote, “Well, you have to remember that we shot this in the pandemic. Sure. So we shot it in Canada, so we didn’t have any executive visits.” Trachtenberg added, “That may have helped too.”

The filmmaker further joked with us that he, being “a massive Disney fan,” might have tried to make it a PG-13 movie just so he could convince the powers that be that it was appropriate to put the Predator into the theme parks as a result.

“I know that there’s no way that this can (added to the Disney parks),” he added. “I mean, I assume there’s no way this can end up anywhere in the park. And I thought, oh, if I could find a way to make it PG thirteens somehow, maybe it can end up in frontier land. And it’s impossible. I mean, this, the movie’s pretty, pretty gnarly.”

Prey will debut on Hulu on August 5. The film features a cast comprised almost entirely of Native and First Nation’s talent, including Amber Midthunder (“The Ice Road,” “Roswell, New Mexico”), newcomer Dakota Beavers, Stormee Kipp (“Sooyii”), Michelle Thrush (“The Journey Home”), Julian Black Antelope (“Tribal”).