Dan Trachtenberg says Predator fans haven’t thought of the best Prey 2 idea yet. Trachtenberg’s Prey this year revived the Predator franchise with a compelling story set in early 1700s America among the Comanche people. It may not have gotten a theatrical release, but the reboot film did go on to become the biggest premiere in the history of Hulu.
The Predator franchise of course began way back in 1987 with a classic testosterone-fueled Arnold Schwarzenegger action vehicle. But the concept of an alien coming to Earth to hunt humans for sport was too juicy to end with that one-off movie. Later on, other Predator aliens would battle humans in the urban jungle of L.A., on an alien world and in the terrifying confines of suburbia. Two spinoff films also pit the Predator against Xenomorphs from the Alien franchise.
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2022’s Prey then gave the franchise a new jolt of life by placing the Predator alien in the distant past to battle Comanche warriors, including a young woman named Naru, played by Amber Midthunder. It seems after the success of this newest Predator sequel that more movies could be coming in the future, perhaps as streaming-only releases like Prey. For his part, Prey director Trachtenberg says he’d like to continue being part of the franchise and believes there are more interesting ideas to explore. Speaking to the podcast Radio One’s Screen Time, the writer-director teased fans with the suggestion that there are some very good ideas for more Predator movies that haven’t been brought up yet:
“I would like to be involved, and I think there’s several really cool things to do next, and it would be interesting to embark on a few different things, rather than… And I think some of the more exciting ideas are ones that people aren’t considering, you know? Just as this movie was a, like, ‘I can’t believe they haven’t made this yet,’ there’s a few other ideas out there, for me, that are, like, ‘Oh, they haven’t done this yet. This could be cool.’ So, yeah. […] That moment [of inspiration] may have already been had.”
Trachtenberg naturally keeps his cool ideas for more Predator movies to himself (because he presumably wants to use one of them). Prey of course did set up a possible sequel in its final moments with an end-credits graphic suggesting that more Predator aliens descended upon Earth shortly after the events of the movie’s conclusion. But certainly this already-suggested sequel possibility is not one of the “cool ideas” Trachtenberg indicates have yet to be thrown out by fans discussing what Prey 2 might be about.
Many a fan has of course already discussed the chance that the Predator franchise could go on by exploring other eras of Earth history, with Predator aliens arriving to battle warriors from various ancient cultures. While it might be fun to see Predator aliens battling samurai or Roman centurions, such ideas again have already been widely-discussed, and certainly are not the exciting new things Trachtenberg is talking about. Such a tease as this no doubt will prompt more Prey 2 fan brainstorming than ever before. And of course, it serves Trachtenberg’s purposes if Prey 2 buzz keeps humming on the internet, as this increases the possibility that Hulu or someone else will want to order up a sequel to 2022’s highly-regarded Predator reboot.