Prepare to get far more acquainted with the Yautja than ever before, including a look at their planet and culture, in Prey director Dan Trachtenberg’s Predator: Badlands.
Much has already been publicized about Badlands’ unconventional protagonist for a Predator movie, a young Yautja looking to prove himself by embarking on a perilous big game hunt, but that only scratches the surface of the expansive scope, ambition, and curiosity that Trachtenberg has for Predator: Bandlands and beyond when it comes to Predator.
When Bloody Disgusting visited the Predator: Badlands set last summer in Aotearoa New Zealand, it became apparent quickly just how different an experience this film will be from Trachtenberg’s previous two Predator films, and its implications for the larger picture.
To start, the titular Predator in this installment is Dek, played by relative newcomer Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi. Unlike previous films’ Yautja hunters, the odds are stacked against Dek. Framing Dek as more of an underdog didn’t just speak to Trachtenberg’s heart as a filmmaker; it provided an entry point to positioning an iconic horror monster as the unconventional hero in a sprawling adventure story.
“One is he is the runt of the litter,” Trachtenberg, who co-wrote with Patrick Aison (Prey), told press from set. “He is the smallest of his clan and most seen as the weakest in a way. He is also involved in a very traumatic event at the beginning of the movie that he’s taking the whole adventure to deal with. From the jump, you are thrust into a really high-intensity physical and emotional situation with him that I think will really put you in his shoes, despite being a character that in another movie would be the silent gunman, like Mandalorian, Lone Wolf and Cub, or Man on Fire.”
(L-R) Thia (Elle Fanning) and Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) in 20th Century Studios’ PREDATOR: BADLANDS film. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.
Offsetting the Yautja’s more stoic nature to further humanize Dek is an unorthodox sidekick with Elle Fanning’s damaged synth. At the center of this Predator movie is an unlikely partnership between a Yautja and a character born of the Alien universe’s evil corporation, Weyland-Yutani. The director explains, “You have a loquacious main character and we’re along with a very quiet helper. In this movie, you’re linked to the helper. So, it’s the opening sequence, and he’s being very overwhelmed with what he’s dealing with. He’s up against things that are way crazier than we’ve ever seen a Predator deal with before. The other thing I love in movies, and that I think really links you to characters, is seeing them try. The secret sauce of the Mission Impossible franchise is that Tom Cruise is not James Bond, who can handle everything with grace. He’s failing constantly. The fun of him is always floundering through whatever the sequence is, but then being awesome. So there’s a lot of failure for him, but then he awesomely overcomes.”
Predator: Badlands will give Dek ample opportunities to fail and overcome. The young runt crash lands on the hostile planet Genna to hunt the legendary and behemoth creature called the Kalisk. Never mind that the ship was stolen from Dek’s older brother Kwei (Mike Homik); Kalisk is far from the only dangerous flora and fauna inhabiting Genna. Dek’s hunt will be unforgiving, forcing him to use whatever resources are available. Luckily, this Yautja will get creative.
(L-R) Kwei (Mike Homik) and Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) in 20th Century Studios’ PREDATOR: BADLANDS film. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.
Schuster-Koloamatangi also reminds of the advantages of playing an underdog. “Since he’s smaller, he’s a lot more agile. He’s very quick, but smaller and at a disadvantage.” Dek isn’t just a runt; he’s also blind in one eye. “That’s a part of his defective nature, being one eye and smaller than the rest. It’s just more obstacles for him to overcome. He’s always been thought of as less by his people and his culture. He’s pretty much shunned. Having less vision makes him more of a threat because it’s like, ‘I’ve got to push through this; I’ve got to get to the other side, and I’m going to prove everyone wrong.’”
Dek’s underdog status means that he comes armed with weapons that aren’t suited to his size, nor do they survive, forcing him to get resourceful on Genna. Props master Matt Cornelius shows off some of the classic Yautja weaponry that’ll be employed in Badlands, noting that even they handicap Dek’s quest. “He’s what you could call a junior, and these weapons are all based on the family design, so when we do see the father and his brother, Kwei, they’re a lot bigger. Especially the sword, when he’s wielding the sword on Genna. Pretty tricky for him, because again, it’s something he’s not used to. Keen but maybe not the master.”
The family sword is the weapon of choice, according to Cornelius, as he shows visiting press an array of weaponry, some from Yautja’s home planet and others crafted by Dek on Genna, fabricated by WETA. Another featured weapon is the laser bow. “It’s one of those weird things that it’s both, again, it doesn’t fire a real arrow, it fires like a laser beam, so it’s a bit like a gun, but it’s also pretty cool to have bow weapons. They’re all based on very traditional weapons, but they’ve just been totally upped into a whole new world. We’ve got little grenades here. These are little; they’re described as a netball, which we might’ve seen in Prey. It’s another take on that. It gets powered up front on the ground, explodes, and fires like a laser beam that just scythes and cuts through everything.“ All of Badlands’ Yautja carry retractable wrist blades for close combat.
Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) in 20th Century Studios’ PREDATOR: BADLANDS film. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.
The weaponry gets infinitely more fascinating when it comes to Dek’s Genna arsenal. SFX legend Alec Gillis, whose history with the legend dates back to the 1987 original Predator, is also back to help with the film’s practical effects and creature work. That entails some of Dek’s weapons, in the form of some of Genna’s pint-sized but no less lethal creatures. Two creatures in particular, dubbed Squirt and Bud, sport adorable names but pack a mean punch for Dek’s enemies.
Gillis explains, “The lead Predator has his equipment, but it is stripped away from him in the crash by the life forms that are on this planet. We had this idea that what if he recreates his weaponry through the use of organic things on the planet? They’ve got the classic Predator shoulder cannon. What if he finds a lifeform that is maybe this sort of snake-like character that he can coax, that sits on his shoulder and has this ability to spit two chemicals that, when they combine in the air, become explosive and fiery? That’s what got him nicknamed Squirt. This was a little character that we designed, and he’s sort of a snake-like guy. But this sits on the Predator’s shoulder, and then he wraps the tail around his arm.”
While Squirt operates more like a traditional weapon, Bud is Dek’s new alien friend who shouldn’t be underestimated despite his cute stature. To say more would risk spoiling the surprises with this little weaponized ally. Expect a wily critter, accordingly to stunt coordinator Jacob Tomuri. He explains, “We’ve got Ravi Narayan playing Bud, and he’s a performer that I’ve known for a long time. We had Bud running around, beating people up, and jumping off things in wire-assisted rigs.“
(L-R) Thia (Elle Fanning) and Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) in 20th Century Studios’ PREDATOR: BADLANDS film. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.
That saves the biggest ally for last, Thia, who’s sent to Genna along with other Weyland-Yutani synths to collect specimens, including the Kalisk. Producer Ben Rosenblatt sets up what to expect with Elle Fanning’s dual roles, making a crucial distinction about Badlands’ place in the Alien/Predator timeline. “She was sent with a counterpart, a partner synth, who’s named Tessa. This all takes place way in the future, after everything that we know from the universe of Alien and Weyland-Yutani and Predator and Predator vs. Alien, all that stuff. This is the farthest out that it’s gone. The mission is led by more combat, militaristic synths, and on the research end, driven by these two research synths who are more about observing the planet, understanding it, so that they, Weyland-Yutani, can harvest what they can from it and create all the terrifying things they do.”
That Predator: Badlands takes place the furthest into the future makes Thia and Tessa the latest and most evolved versions of Weyland-Yutani synth. Badlands introduces Thia alone, badly damaged, and stuck in mud when Dek comes upon her. That she’s lacking her lower limbs is one of the biggest hurdles of the film, both for Dek and for production, considering she spends much of the film strapped to the Predator’s back.
Elle Fanning on the set of 20th Century Studios’ PREDATOR: BADLANDS film. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.
“One of the first obstacles was how are we going to put Elle on Dimitrius’s back for a good portion of this film?“ Tomuri acknowledged. “I got a small team of guys together and we developed a slack line. We can span a slack line for as long as we want to, as long as we have a straight line. And we created a thing called a bosun’s chair. We put the bosun’s chair underneath Elle’s hamstrings, and we put it to a single point. We had another single point on her back. We attached it to a spreader, and we can travel them along the slack line. We developed a counterweight system, so we would take up 70% of Elle’s weight. It still looked like there was weight in the backpack, but it meant that Dimitrius could do all the movements. He could do all the running, sprinting, jumping, and navigating over the landscape.”
That doesn’t mean she’s immobile, which also presented technical challenges. “Obviously, she’s got no legs, and her legs get in the way a lot,“ Tomuri points out. “We did quite a few little tricks, like we looked at Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump and how they did that. We would build trenches in the ground so she could still move herself along the ground, but she had a hole in the ground. Or we’d put holes and gurneys to hide her real legs. But anytime we could just play little tricks to help us out and not have to do too much wild work, then we do it.“ In other words, never underestimate a synth, especially not the most advanced model yet.
(L-R) Thia (Elle Fanning) and Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) in 20th Century Studios’ PREDATOR: BADLANDS film. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.
“My pitch was that it was like Chewbacca and C-3PO, the movie,“ Trachtenberg said of Badlands, giving a strong indicator of the dynamics between Dek and Thia.
If that sounds too lighthearted for a Predator movie, don’t worry; Trachtenberg and team are putting Dek through a grueling gauntlet. With so many synths, Yautja, and various creatures of Genna brawling to the death, expect a colorful array of blood splatter this time, from neon green to milky white to purple and beyond.
Rosenblatt teases, “We don’t have any humans in the movie, and so we don’t have any human red blood. We’re hoping that’s going to play to our advantage. Which is a way of answering your question, how hard are we going to go? We’re going to go as hard as we possibly can within those constraints, and we think we’ll be able to do some pretty awesomely gruesome stuff, but colors other than red.“
Predator: Badlands will release in theaters on November 7, 2025, in IMAX, Dolby Cinema, RealD 3D, Cinemark XD, 4DX, ScreenX, and premium screens everywhere.
The post The Creatures, Weapons, and Unconventional Yautja Hero of ‘Predator: Badlands’ [Set Visit] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
