Dan Trachtenberg, director of the fifth installment in the Predator film franchise, details a new streamlined look for the alien antagonist of Prey.
Though the newest entry into the Predator film franchise is set in the distant past, the killer hunter from beyond the stars will sport a new, sleeker look in Prey, says director Dan Trachtenberg.
In an interview with Time Out promoting the upcoming streaming release of the sci-fi action film, Trachtenberg gave some hints about what audiences can expect from this version of the Predator. “I wanted it to be scarier than we’ve seen it before,” the director explained. “It’s intelligent and it has advanced technology, and that makes it even more difficult to take on. But because the movie is set 300 years in the past, those things need to feel a little bit older than we’ve seen before, but also still far more advanced than what we think our earthlings would be able to handle. I wanted to make sure the head was more proportional to the body. This predator is much slimmer and less armored than it’s ever been. It’s more ‘creature’. It’s still hulking and ferocious.”
The fifth film in the Predator series is set on the Great Plains of North America, with a group of Comanche Nation warriors going up against the killing machine. A young hunter known as Naru, played by Amber Midthunder (Legion; Roswell, New Mexico), hopes to protect her tribe from the invader in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse, glimpses of which can be seen in the trailer for Prey.
Several First Nation actors in addition to Midthunder make appearances in Prey as the Comanche hunters. It is also the first Hollywood film to offer both subtitles and a dub in the Comanche language. “Dubbing has come a long way,” Trachtenberg joked in the interview. “It won’t feel like an old Shaw Brothers kung fu movie. I think it adds a whole new layer of authenticity.”
Part of Trachtenberg’s pitch to get Prey made was in its setting and period, which he called an unconventional Western. “A Native American story, to make a Western that has no cowboys in it,” the director said in an earlier interview. “That’s a movie which really does not exist. It shockingly doesn’t. I wanted to make a movie that would be told primarily visually and through action.”
It’s possible the prequel won’t be the last installment in the Predator franchise, which started in 1987 with Predator, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. “There are a lot of exciting ideas for what could be next for the franchise,” Trachtenberg said. “The things that most excite me are the boldest swings and I think there’s scope to do other things that haven’t been done before.”
A leaner, meaner Predator will appear in Prey streaming worldwide Aug. 5 on Hulu and Disney+.
Source: Time Out