Major spoilers ahead: The end credits of Prey featured ledger art paintings that depicted Yautja vessels descending upon the Comanche tribe, signaling the story wasn’t over. Original animated anthology Predator: Killer of Killers continues that thread with imagery hinting toward the franchise’s future.
The anthology, now streaming on Hulu, features a triptych depicting three of the fiercest warriors in human history: a Viking raider guiding her young son on a bloody quest for revenge, a ninja in feudal Japan who turns against his Samurai brother in a brutal battle for succession, and a WWII pilot who takes to the sky to investigate an otherworldly threat to the Allied cause.
The self-contained stories eventually converge as the human warriors awaken from suspended animation and find themselves displaced by time on a strange new planet, held captive and forced to enter a gladitorial arena where they must fight each other to the death. The prize for survival? The winner must face a behemoth Warlord Predator to determine the ultimate Killer of Killers.
A scene still from 20th Century Studios’ PREDATOR: KILLER OF KILLERS, exclusively on Hulu. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.
The trio of humans eventually learn to work together to escape their new fate, but tough-as-nails shield-maiden Ursa (Lindsay LaVanchy) sacrifices herself to aid the escape. But the Yautja have long been established as an extra-terrestrial species that honors a worthy opponent and places Ursa back in stasis instead of killing her. The anthology ends with Ursa getting placed back in their cryo storage alongside countless others that the Yauja have collected throughout time and space, with the final image of the film resting on another warrior in their possession: Naru (Amber Midthunder), the Comanche warrior who bested the Predator in Prey.
It’s a startling sight in that it not only answers the questions Prey‘s closing credit imagery evoked but that it’s not exactly the fate we’d wish for the young Comanche warrior. Still, it means she’s alive and poised to face the Predators again sometime in the future.
Naru’s surprise appearance also highlights that Prey director and Predator: Killer of Killers co-director Dan Trachtenberg is playing the slow game when it comes to expanding the Predator franchise. The filmmaker also has Predator: Badlands on the way this year, but this Killer of Killers cameo is laying the groundwork for what’s beyond. Don’t expect to see Naru pop up in Badlands; Trachtenberg has larger ambitions for her return, which he’s keeping close to the vest.
Trachtenberg tells Bloody Disgusting, “The fun is that now we have the end of Prey set up something, and then there’s this, and I love the slow play of it all. I think is cool rather than smushing everything together inside one movie right away, we can really be elegant with our storytelling and hopefully aspire to that. So, it is not a setup for what’s in Badlands, but it is a setup for what could happen afterward.”
It’s clear the director is thinking many steps ahead, and that Naru factors into those plans if they come to pass. Naru’s appearance in the Yautja cryo bay means that a sequel to Prey could take place anywhere, at any time. What are the Yautja up to with their collection of hunters? The possibilities are now endless.
The post ‘Predator: Killer of Killers’ Co-Director Dan Trachtenberg Explains What That Ending Image Means [Spoiler] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
