A secret ‘Predator’ movie is coming out next year before ‘Badlands’

Dan Trachtenberg is bringing more aliens to planet Earth.

Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, 20th Century Studios boss Steve Asbell revealed that the Prey director will release another Predator movie before the theatrical release of his Predator: Badlands next year.

“After Prey became a success, Dan came back and said he didn’t want to do Prey 2,” said Asbell. “And we’re like, ‘What do you want to do?’ And he rattled off a bunch of ideas that were really crazy but really cool. We’ve actually done two of them.” Both “are coming out next year,” he confirmed.

Though he “can’t talk about” the second movie just “yet,” Asbell confirmed the upcoming Predator: Badlands, starring Elle Fanning and arriving on Earth on Nov. 7, 2025, is one of them, calling it “absolutely bonkers” and “not what everybody thinks it is.” He added, “It is so nuts. But in Dan, we trust.”

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But, yes, Trachtenberg’s second secret Predator movie “will come out before” Badlands, “but I can’t say anything about [it] yet,” Asbell reiterated.

Trachtenberg, who helmed the 2022 Predator sequel Prey, directed and co-wrote the upcoming Badlands, which is said to be a standalone story as opposed to a sequel within the alien-hunting franchise. No other details, including a synopsis, have been confirmed by the studio yet.

Asbell remained equally mum and vague when asked about the possibility of seeing another Alien vs. Predator movie, stating “probably” before expanding on the comment: “It wouldn’t be in the way you think,” he said, later adding, “If we do this, they’ll be organically created out of these two franchises that we’ve continued with characters that we fall in love with and those characters will combine…perhaps. But we haven’t gotten to that point. And we’re not just going to bang it out.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger headlined the first Predator, playing a mercenary who finds himself hunted by extraterrestrials while leading a crew during a rescue operation in Central America. John McTiernan helmed the 1987 flick that also starred Carl Weathers, Kevin Peter Hall, Elpidia Carrillo, and Jesse Ventura.