Predator: Badlands director Dan Trachtenberg says there is no Xenomorph in the film, he also teases a future franchise return for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Speaking with Empire recently, Trachtenberg broke the news to fans that despite speculation, there is no Xenomorph in Badlands. I myself theorised the enemy of that film could be a Xeno, based on a few things said by Alien: Romulus director Fede Alvarez. You can see my reasoning in the related link below.
However, whilst the inclusion of Weyland-Yutani seems to link these two Disney franchises together again, long term, there’s no Xenomorph in Badlands.
“There’s no Xenomorph in this movie. But to me, that makes it more exciting. We’re not involving the Alien franchise just to smush the action figures together. There are great, organic story reasons for Weyland-Yutani to be in this film.”
“Thia [Synth character in Badlands] has been on Genna a while, seeing things she wouldn’t normally see. She’s absorbing all this new information, and she’s broken too, so she’s become very different from the other synths.”
Dutch Return?
As for the Predator franchise itself, Trachtenberg teases there could be a future for original star Arnold Schwarzenegger. The stage has kinda already been set as the animated Predator: Killer of Killers showed Dutch is being held in stasis, alongside Prey‘s Naru.
“I met Arnold, and he said, ‘You’d think I get, ‘l’ll be back,’ yelled at me most, but it’s actually, ‘Get to the chopper!’ So, he’s well aware of the franchise’s staying power. He was excited to talk about what else we could do.”
“Because there’s so much more story to tell now — you could tell how [Dutch and Naru] were captured. Or, what happens when they’re de-iced? Many possibilities.”
RELATED: Predator: Badlands Gets First Trailer – Plus An Obvious Plot Twist Seems In Play
In terms of the franchise staying power. It owes a lot to that first movie, which remains one of Arnie’s career highlights. That first movie is lightning in a bottle and the franchise has never quite hit those heights again for me.
We should have had a sequel starring Schwarzenegger years and years ago. However, that didn’t happen and now I’d wonder what would be the point of bringing back Dutch as an old man. I’d want to see him kick some Predator ass again. I can’t see old man Arnold fighting a 7 foot Yautja though, you know what I mean?
It really just illustrates how badly Fox handled both the Predator and Alien franchises that I wish we had new sequels to Aliens and Predator and the rest were simply erased from existence. Yet, I think it a tad too late to give us the Dutch and Ripley focused sequels we really needed. Least Ripley was in the Alien sequels mind.
What do you think as Predator: Badlands director Dan Trachtenberg says there is no Xenomorph in the film. Do you see a future franchise return for Arnold Schwarzenegger? Thoughts below.
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