Summary

Collider’s Steve Weintraub talks with Dan Trachtenberg for Hulu’s Predator: Killer of Killers.

The director discusses whether he plans to continue making Predator movies and how this anthology film fits into the timeline with Prey and Predator: Badlands.

Trachtenberg also talks about his involvement with a Portal movie and the rumored Waterworld series.

Filmmaker Dan Trachtenberg has made a name for himself by mastering one of Hollywood’s trickiest endeavors. In 2016, he made his feature directorial debut by helming the first sequel to Matt Reeves’ sci-fi horror franchise with 10 Cloverfield Lane, and in 2022, he brought life back to the Predator franchise with the acclaimed straight-to-streaming sequel Prey. Now, ahead of the highly anticipated Predator: Badlands, Trachtenberg has re-teamed with The Third Floor CCO, visual effects creative supervisor, and co-director, Joshua Wassung, for Predator: Killer of Killers. It’s a feature-length animated anthology that expands the Predator lore through three stories from some of Earth’s fiercest warriors. This R-rated addition to the saga takes us through time and space, and adds an emotional depth to the creature features Trachtenberg first explored in Prey. In this interview with Collider’s Steve Weintraub, Trachtenberg discusses his intentions to stick with the sci-fi franchise he’s more than proven his dedication to. He talks about whether he’ll direct more after Badlands, as well as whether fans will need to see Killer of Killers before its November release. He also shares what he knows about his reported Portal feature adaptation and the Waterworld series.
Dan Trachtenberg Reveals His Plans With the Franchise After ‘Predator: Badlands’

“What’s a ride that I haven’t gone on yet?”

COLLIDER: I really want to start with the movie is fucking awesome. I’m sure you’re hearing that from everyone, but I really want to say congrats. DAN TRACHTENBERG: Thank you, dude. It means more coming from you, so thank you for saying that. You clearly know what you’re doing with Predator. Prey is incredible. This is incredible. You’ve got another Predator movie coming out at the end of the year, which I’m obviously incredibly enthusiastic and excited for. I have to ask you as a fan, do you see yourself continuing in this Predator universe and taking the reins and controlling, or is it like, “This is the year I’m doing Predator and then I might do other things?” TRACHTENBERG: What I’m doing in the Predator universe are movies that I want to be making anyway. So, within the Predator universe, I have now made an awesome World War II aerial dogfight movie, I’ve made an awesome Viking movie, and a story set in feudal Japan, all of them very emotional and sometimes with things very personal to me in them, and thematically oriented. None of it is like, “Oh, I’m just doing Predator.” All of them are stories I would be telling, different genres sometimes, anyway. So, that’s really been the exciting thing. I think Predator is a franchise that lends itself to that and has allowed for this kind of storytelling to happen. Everything for me is like, “What’s a ride that I haven’t gone on yet? That we haven’t taken as an audience yet? What is an essential movie? What is like, ‘Oh my god, that movie must be made?’” That’s been using the iconography of this franchise so far. I certainly could see myself continuing to do so, as well.
‘Lilo & Stitch’ May Have Thrown a Wrench in Dan Trachtenberg’s Portal Adaptation

The filmmaker also gives us an update on the Waterworld series that never was.

I’ve been wanting to know this for a while: whatever happened to that Waterworld TV series? TRACHTENBERG: It never really even was. I love Waterworld so much. I truly, actually wanted to sequelize it in a video game. Would that I could. I still would. The producers of that had a conversation with me and then sort of announced it or mentioned it in a way that was a little bit premature, so I haven’t really gone any further into what that is or was. I’ve heard that from so many people, like take a meeting dot com. You had a meeting, you’re doing the projects. TRACHTENBERG: [Laughs] Right, right, right. Exactly. It’s ridiculous. Another thing I’ve wanted to know, you obviously made that incredible Portal short film, [Portal: No Escape], and they’ve been trying to make a Portal movie for a while now. If they came to you and said, “We want you to do a Portal movie,” would you do it, or is that a chapter in your life that’s in the past? TRACHTENBERG: The hardest thing about doing a Portal movie now is that Dungeons & Dragons movie, [Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves], that was phenomenal, terribly underrated, should have had a bigger audience, did a Portal sequence in it that was absolutely spectacular. And Lilo & Stitch just did some fun Portal things, as well. So, I think it’s not the same as it was, not to mean that there still isn’t more to do there. Right after doing the short, I had pitched what I would have done, and it was a bonkers, crazy idea. So, I don’t know where they’re at now. I don’t know if Bad Robot still has it. They might still have it. In one sense, it sort of is a chapter from the past for me, but also, my mind hasn’t been there as of late. Video game stuff is so popular right now.

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Is ‘Killer of Killers’ A Standalone in the Predator Universe?

Will you be lost in the ‘Badlands’ if you don’t catch this movie first?

Something that people are going to want to know, and I want to know, is do you have to have watched Predator: Killer of Killers before you watched Predator: Badlands, or are they completely separate things? TRACHTENBERG: I really don’t love when any movie demands that, so even if they were directly touching each other, I would still at least try to make it in a way that you did not need to have that experience. Even The Dark Knight and Batman Begins, you could watch The Dark Knight not having seen Batman Begins, even though those are clearly meant to be like, “This is a trilogy.” But you don’t need to engage with those stories that way. Something I’m also very curious about is the mythology of Predator and what you need to do when you’re pitching the studio. So you’re doing this, you’re doing Badlands. You’re clearly adding to the mythology of the universe. Is there someone at the studio that you need to clear it with, or do you get free rein because it’s pretty open-ended? TRACHTENBERG: There’s the studio that I will always have to pitch to to get a movie going, period. There is not a Predator gatekeeper that is in charge of Predator lore, and so all these ideas must be approved by that person. So, no. Killer of Killers and Badlands I pitched close to simultaneously. But no, I’m just pitching them to get them jazzed to make them as a movie of their own merits. Stay tuned for the spoiler half of this interview after Predator: Killer of Killers releases on Hulu and Disney+ on June 6.

Predator: Killer of Killers

Release Date

June 6, 2025

Director

Dan Trachtenberg, Josh Wassung

Writers

Micho Robert Rutare, Dan Trachtenberg