As much as it’s great to see Predator: Badlands taking the franchise in new directions, it also serves as a reminder that we still haven’t gotten an exciting prequel the movies first teased 35 years ago. In fact, out of both Predator movies coming out in 2025, Predator: Badlands least resembles the one we’re still waiting for after all this time. And that’s unfortunately not surprising when considering that, out of all Predator movies made thus far, prequels haven’t really demanded the most attention. It’s one of many reasons that Prey was such a refreshing addition to the franchise.
Part of what makes the lack of prequels upsetting is that several films have established the Yautja as having had previous contact with mankind, long before one showed up in the jungle and chased a T-800 toward a helicopter. This means that the Predator franchise has virtually unlimited prequel potential, something Predator: Killer of Killers seems to realize. But that anthology will only whet some appeтιтes, and the Predator: Badlands trailer is a reminder of one prequel in particular that we still need.
Predator: Badlands Teases How The Yautja Fought Dinosaurs
It’s At The Very Beginning Of The First Trailer
As a testament to the enduring popularity of the franchise, it only takes one sH๏τ of an empty room to recognize that the Badlands trailer is marketing a Predator movie. These trophy rooms have been iconic for decades, and the trophy wall in the Predator: Badlands trailer immediately tells a story about the trophies’ owner. Despite the seemingly younger Predator design in Predator: Badlands, whoever owns this ship has been around long enough to coexist with Weyland Yutani while still having lived through the Cretaceous period to collect the Tyrannosaurus skull on the far right.
Theoretically, a Predator wouldn’t actually need to have lived that long to hunt down a T-rex. Although likely not canon to the franchise, the comic Tarzan vs. Predator: At the Earth’s Core shows that the Yautja can also hunt dinosaurs by visiting the fictional sub-surface realm called Pellucidar. Created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, this fictional land appears to have influenced several works of fiction, most recently Godzilla vs. Kong. But regardless of when the Predator: Badlands protagonist killed this particular reptile, the Yautja fighting dinosaurs has been around since even before the aforementioned comic.
Predator Has Been Teasing A Dinosaur Prequel Since Predator 2
The Trophy Rooms Suggest How Big The Franchise Could Truly Be
At the end of the 1990 sequel Predator 2, Danny Glover’s Mike Harrigan fights the alien hunter all the way to its underground ship. This was our first-ever glimpse at a Yautja trophy wall. And while many were quick to notice the Xenomorph skull, the first thing Mike notices is a skull belonging to what looks like a Tyrannosaurus from an alien planet. It has a few too many eye sockets and some rather vicious-looking teeth, but there’s no doubt that it was designed with the basic traits of an Earth dinosaur in mind.
Just as it’s taken us until Predator: Killer of Killers to finally see a Predator spaceship battle appear in the movies, it would also take us a bit longer after Predator 2 to get what seems to be a legitimate Earth dinosaur in a Yautja trophy room. But in 2007, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem featured a trophy wall that appears to contain the skull of a Triceratops. Between this and the T-rex skull in Predator: Badlands, there are now at least two justifications for a Predator movie set in the Cretaceous period.
A Predator vs Dinosaurs Movie Could Combine Elements Of Prey & Badlands
It Would Use The Most Interesting Aspects Of Each Movie
One of the things that made Prey brilliant was that it showed how a Predator movie could work in a timeline when the Yautja hunted prey who didn’t possess modern weapons. Certain sequences in the Predator: Killer of Killers anthology should accomplish that as well, but an entire movie set in a past time period far removed from the present could be even more rewarding. If it took place early enough in Earth’s timeline to include dinosaurs, it would likely have to follow Predator: Badlands by including a Yautja as the protagonist.
The major roadblock is simply how to turn that into a fully engaging story. Making it all about the hunt itself might be compelling, but the film could also go a similar route to Killer of Killers by showing the Yautja return to Earth at different stages of evolution to hunt new prey, leading up to their first encounter with humans. Either way, Predator: Badlands absolutely should not be the last film to use a Yautja as protagonist. The further back we go with Predators as main characters, the more incredible world-building will become achievable.
