As you might have guessed from its first teaser, Elle Fanning’s character in Predator: Badlands is the new link between the Predator and Alien franchises. She is, in fact, a Weyland-Yutani synth, and it seems she’ll be hanging on our Predator protagonist’s back for much of the movie (and Gizmodo points out that the film’s working title — what a studio/production will call a feature when it’s still under wraps — was “Backpack”).
Honestly, we’re here for this Yoda/Luke relationship that Dan Trachtenberg’s trying to evoke with this pairing, and we need more two-handers in genre fiction these days, dammit. You don’t need a full ensemble every time you make a movie, guys. Anyway, 20th Century Studios dropped a full-length trailer for the film earlier on Monday, and it looks, as you might expect, dope.
Peep it:
Here’s a short synopsis for Predator: Badlands:
“‘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, Brent O’Connor.”
Yeah, you shouldn’t have expected a Melville-like dissertation there. After all, Dan Trachtenberg didn’t even want you to know that Prey was a Predator movie until you sat down to watch it. It’s crazy as hell that we even know that Fanning’s playing a synthetic now.
Anyway, Predator: Badlands will hit theaters on November 7, and will (hopefully) be as good as and as big a smash hit as Alien: Romulus was. And yes, we have knocked on wood, crossed our fingers, and such, but we’re too kind-hearted to try and get a rabbit’s foot straight from the source.