San Diego Comic-Con took place over the weekend and included a ton of fun reveals, events, and panels. Many upcoming shows and movies were showcased, including Prey. The latest installment to the Predator franchise had its world premiere at the con, and early reactions have fans saying it’s one of the best installments since the original film was released in 1987. During the event, ComicBook.com had the chance to chat with the film’s cast along with director Dan Trachtenberg who is best known for helming 10 Cloverfield Lane. During the interview, Amber Midthunder (Naru) talked about the boot camp the cast went through to prepare for the film.
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“You don’t,” Midthunder replied with a laugh when ComicBook.com‘s Brandon Davis asked how you prepare to come face to face with Predator. “You cannot. It is so impossible. We had the four-week trainig camp that we did. Dakota [Beavers] and I and all the other boys before we started filming. But truthfully, there’s no way to prepare to show up to work every day for a week and get thrown in a mud pit or a river or, you know, at one point I was running down a cliff or something. You can’t really prepare for that.”
“The thing I was most scared of was the river,” Midthunder added. “I grew up around water, but I also grew up knowing how dangerous it is, so when we showed up, and to get to the river, you climb down a hill and get in a paddle boat. They take you across the river, then you walk more, and then they built like a beaver dam in the middle of the river, and just looking at that and watching – because we had other stuff to shoot there before I got in – so just watching that for days before we started, I had anxiety building on top of anxiety on top of anxiety. But then once I got in, it was so fun.”
Prey is expected to be a very different type of Predator film. Despite the movie featuring the iconic sci-fi horror villain as its antagonist, Trachtenberg says longtime fans of the Predator property shouldn’t expect the movie to be filled with easter eggs from past films.
“There was so many moments where were almost seduced by putting in more and more easter eggs,” the filmmaker said in a recent spotlight in Empire Magazine. “‘Get to the chopper!’ is not in this movie despite so many people wondering, ‘what if there was a horse named Chopper?’ We didn’t go all the way there, though there are tons of intentional and unintentional nods to the first movie.”
“What’s funny is in the trailer, there’s a sequence in the tall grass. And I remember going over to one of our actors, Harlan [Blayne Kytwayhat], who plays Itsee in the movie. He’s the one who pulls Amber down into the grass. And he has to tell her to be quiet,” Trachtenberg added. “And I said, ‘I think it wants to feel like you don’t freak out. There was a line or something, but I said, just go, ‘Ssh.’ Just hold up your finger. I watched the take back, turned the cinematographer, and said, ‘this feels familiar, I think.’ And he goes, ‘yeah, Predator.’ And I was like, Oh, yeah…’ Obviously, that movie is ingrained in my brain.”
Prey is coming to Hulu on August 5th.
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Set in the Comanche Nation 300 years ago, "Prey" is the story of a young woman, Naru, a fierce and highly skilled warrior. She has been raised in the shadow of some of the most legendary hunters who roam the Great Plains, so when danger threatens her camp, she sets out to protect her people. The prey she stalks, and ultimately confronts, turns out to be a highly evolved alien predator with a technically advanced arsenal, resulting in a vicious and terrifying showdown between the two adversaries. Naru (Amber Midthunder) and the Predator (Dane DeLiegro), shown. (Photo by: David Bukach/20th Century Studios)
