According to Polygon, director Dan Trachtenberg’s new film, Predator: Badlands, represents a major tonal shift for the iconic franchise. The movie, released in theaters, centers on a young, runty Yautja named Dek who is sent to a hostile “death planet” called Genna. There, he teams up with an optimistic synthetic human, Thia, and a cute, Baby Yoda-like creature named Bud. The film actively avoids the horror and gore of previous entries, maintaining a PG-13 rating and focusing on an odd-couple dynamic and themes of family. This approach is seen as a direct result of Disney’s 2019 acquisition of 21st Century Fox, bending the property toward its mold of teen-friendly, spectacle-driven entertainment.
A Predator Without the Bite
Here’s the thing: this isn’t your older sibling’s Predator. The core premise—feeling sympathy for the hunter—is a fascinating flip of the script. But by making the Yautja the underdog protagonist and filling the screen with a cute mascot, the movie systematically drains the dread that defined the franchise. The tension isn’t about whether someone will get horrifically killed; it’s about whether our hero will learn the value of friendship and protect his new pack. It’s a fun adventure, sure, but it’s a Predator adventure in name and creature design only. The fangs are still there, but as Polygon notes, all the bite is gone.
Disney’s Fox Assembly Line
So what does this tell us? Badlands feels less like a standalone experiment and more like a blueprint. Disney now owns a vault of hard-edged Fox properties, and this film shows the playbook for sanitizing them for the broadest possible audience. The comparison to Avatar is spot-on—another Fox property Disney inherited. Both are visually stunning, theme-park-ride movies about nature and found family with clearly defined good and evil. The real question is: which franchise is next? This feels like a test case. If a PG-13, heartwarming Predator succeeds, why not apply that formula elsewhere? The era of the gritty, R-rated studio blockbuster from these brands might be closing.
Where Does the Franchise Go From Here?
Look, Badlands will probably find its audience. It’s a well-made creature feature. But it creates a weird split in the franchise’s identity. Dan Trachtenberg himself directed the brutal and excellent Prey for Hulu. Now he’s made this. It suggests Disney is segmenting its IP: the gritty, horror-adjacent stuff stays on streaming for the core fans, while the theatrical releases become four-quadrant, merchandise-friendly events. Basically, the brand is being stretched in two completely different directions. Can it hold? Or will the wholesome side completely overwrite the horror roots that made it iconic in the first place? For now, the hunter has been well and truly domesticated.
