Predator: Killer of Killers has earned a Rotten Tomatoes score that smashes a franchise record. The new streaming-exclusive movie is the eighth feature-length installment in the sci-fi horror franchise and the first to be animated. It was co-directed by Joshua Wᴀssung and Dan Trachtenberg, the latter of whom helmed the previous installment Prey and the upcoming Predator: Badlands. The movie follows three different timelines where a Predator faces off against a Viking, a ninja from feudal Japan, and a pilot from World War II.

Rotten Tomatoes has now aggregated enough critics’ reviews for Predator: Killer of Killers to give the movie an official Tomatometer score. While the rating could fluctuate if more reviews are added, at the time of writing, 29 reviews have been tabulated, giving it a near-perfect score of 97%. This marks the best score yet for the eight-film franchise, beating the previous high set by 2022’s Prey, which is Certified Fresh with a 94% score.

What This Means For Predator: Killer Of Killers

It’s A Huge Win For The Franchise

Even if the addition of more Predator: Killer of Killers reviews sees the score falling behind Prey, it would have to drop drastically in order for it to become anything less than the second highest-rated installment in the franchise. The next highest-rated of its predecessors is the original 1987 installment, Predator, which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and has a score of 80%, making it the only other Certified Fresh installment other than Prey at the time of writing. Below, see a breakdown of the Rotten Tomatoes scores of all eight movies:

In fact, Killer of Killers has become one of just four Predator movies to earn a Fresh score at all, finally bringing the franchise’s overall percentage of well-reviewed movies to 50% for the first time in its nearly 40-year history. This has been the case because it had a string of Rotten Tomatoes splats after the original movie, which included its two lowest-rated movies ever, both of which were crossovers with the Alien franchise. Both Alien vs. Predator and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem are also the lowest-rated installments in that rival franchise, which consists of nine movies.

Our Take On The Predator: Killer Of Killers Rotten Tomatoes Score

It Is Good News For The Future Of The Franchise

Should Predator: Killer of Killers maintain this level of critical enthusiasm and be cemented as the installment with the best or second-best reviews, this means that Dan Trachtenberg will have helmed the two most well-regarded installments in the entire franchise. This is very good news for the upcoming Badlands, which sees the filmmaker return to live-action for his first theatrical installment. If he manages to then have the three best Predator movies under his belt, this could reinvigorate the franchise and keep it going consistently for years to come.

Source: Rotten Tomatoes