In 2022, 20th Century Studios released Prey, a brand new installment in the Predator series hoping to inject some life in its bloated, mangled Yautja corpse of a franchise. After Shane Black’s experiment in audience alienation with his aptly titled The Predator, many considered this franchise to be nothing more than yet another failed 80’s IP overstaying its welcome. Enter Dan Trachtenberg.

Dan Trachtenberg is a nerd. He’s also an exceptionally talented genre filmmaker who’s been quietly working on some of the most entertaining nerd media for his entire career.

A Brief History on Mr. Trachtenberg

Like many of his peers, Trachtenberg got his start working on short films. A fan of video games, he found his first taste of online notoriety when he made a short fan film based on the Portal game series called Portal: No Escape in 2011. This short went viral with fans of the game impressed at the level of faithfulness as well as filmmaking quality for the time and scale.

In 2014, Trachtenberg landed his first feature film when signed on to direct The Cellar for Paramount and Bad Robot. Based on a spec script by Josh Campbell and Matt Stuecken, later reworked by Damian Chazelle (Whiplash, La La Land), the film began as a relatively low budget thriller about three characters in one location played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Goodman, and John Gallagher Jr. Producer J.J. Abrams eventually decided that the film would work as a spiritual successor/sequel to the 2008 found footage Kaiju creature feature, Cloverfield. 10 Cloverfield Lane released in 2016 after a surprise trailer announced the film well after production had ended. The film proved to be a critical and financial hit, making over $100 million at the global box office on a $15 million budget and receiving favorable reviews from critics.

Trachtenberg took a step back from films and worked on a number of television shows you may have heard of. He directed the season 3 episode of Black Mirror, “Playtest” starring Wyatt Russell as a man testing an experimental AR video game device that leads to an all too real gaming experience. A few years later in 2019 he also directed the pilot episode for a brand new superhero TV series called The Boys. It’s kind of a popular show I guess.

After working on another TV show, one that I didn’t watch, Trachtenberg got his first movie gig since 2016. A new film in the Predator series set over 100 years before the original, following Comanche Native Americans attempting to survive against an intelligent predator with technology they’ve never encountered.

Yes please.

This premise alone should've been enough to guarantee a hit. Stripping down this story into something more bare bones and streamlined with a new entry point is exactly what the franchise needed. The most iconic action movie of all time involves a barefoot off duty cop systematically taking out a group of armed terrorists with nothing more than his brains and the resources available. Audiences needed a fresh take to get excited about this franchise again and here it was on a silver platter.

Then Disney dumped it straight to Hulu.

It was an understandable choice given the huge failure of the previous entry only four years prior. The franchise was dead, the studio had just undergone a major change, and a worldwide pandemic was still subsiding. There was no way Disney would ever have faith in a film starring relatively unknown Native American actors with the public perception of Predator being what it was. But it was a step.

Prey (2022) was met with glowing critical and audience reviews even from The Mind himself, with Jesse Ventura giving the film a positive review and new lead Amber Midthunder his blessing. Audiences were loving the concept of dropping the Predator in various time periods to see how certain warriors across time would fare against the Yautja.

Fans pitched the idea of Vikings or samurai fighting the Predator, igniting the potential for countless stories set in this universe. The ideas seemed limitless and frankly, too obvious to pass up. It was eventually confirmed that Trachtenberg would be making another Predator film, only this one would actually play in theaters and be set on the Predator home planet.

While speculation for the next Earth based Predator adventure had basically died down completely over the next few years, Trachtenberg would be working in secret on a special project to keep fans satiated and excited for more in the meantime.

In 2025, around the time the first trailer for Predator: Badlands released—Trachtenberg’s upcoming entry in the franchise—another trailer dropped for an animated film in the same series. An anthology film called Predator: Killer of Killers was set to drop on Hulu in just a few short months. The film follows three stories focusing on three characters in very different points in time. A viking, samurai, and WWII pilot.

The Killer of Killers

Predator: Killer of Killers is everything a Predator film should be. The film is an anthology and each segment offers a completely different experience that culminates in a pleasantly satisfying conclusion. The animation feels singular while still taking cues from other contemporaries like Arcane or Blue Eye Samurai. Each protagonist offers their own specific qualities that contribute to their individual stories in a satisfying way.

The movie could have felt like a disposable fan film, showcasing the Predator fighting badass warriors like two action figures crashing into each other, but it isn’t. This film isn’t simply interested in showing us something cool that scratches a certain childlike itch. There is real care put into the franchise here. Trachtenberg and co-director Joshua Wassung carefully considered what this world has the potential for. The world building in this film make any attempt at franchise connectivity outside of Marvel feel laughable in comparison. This movie makes the Predator exciting again. Now let’s hope they can do the same for Alien.

Predator: Badlands is an interesting gamble for a franchise on such shaky feet. Prey and Killer of Killers were both streaming hits, but don’t guarantee financial viability, especially with the creative leap Badlands seems to be taking. Making a Predator, or Yautja, the protagonist of the latest entry is a bold idea that could ultimately prove to be another step in the right direction if executed properly. If handled poorly, this could be the Predator’s last hunt.

Dan Trachtenberg may not have the largest body of work or even the most impressive in the grand scheme of things, but that’s not why I wanted to write about him. I wanted to write about him because he truly inspires me. He has built his career working on the projects he cares about and that inspired him the most. There have been times where I’ve almost felt embarrassed for still caring so much about what DC Studios is going to do with Green Lantern or for how badly Netflix fumbled the Avatar: The Last Airbender remake. But seeing someone like Dan Trachtenberg still care about Portal and Predator makes me feel less weird, so I really hope Predator: Badlands is awesome.