'Predator: Badlands' trailer unveiled at CinemaCon shows the hunter becoming the hunted, but the rest of us will have to wait to see it

Predator Badlands logo
(Image credit: 20th Century Studios)

While we eagerly await a first public trailer for Predator: Badlands, which is set to open in theaters on November 7, 2025, CinemaCon attendees got to watch very exciting footage of this upcoming addition to the Predator movie series.

"My character is not the one being chased. My character actually teams up with the Predator," teased Elle Fanning before the footage was shown. Predator: Badlands will be Dan Trachtenberg's second live-action Predator movie, which, beyond being set in the same universe, is entirely unrelated to 2022's Prey. On top of this new entry, word is we are getting an animated feature titled Predator: Killer of Killers later this year too.

Lots of descriptions of the footage were floating around during and after Disney's giant presentation at CinemaCon, but DiscussingFilm's chronicle was perhaps the meatiest. It isn't clear what planet the protagonist Predator (seemingly an outcast) finds himself on, but he crosses paths with Elle Fanning's Thia as various groups of humans hound him with futuristic weaponry. They won't be going out without a fight though, and the lost hunter still takes on all sorts of alien creatures and even one "kaiju-like" beast which could put Xenomorphs to shame.

Longtime Predator fans should be excited to see the movie series embracing more of the comic books' playful energy as the universe expands, and a human-Yautja alliance may be the twist (already briefly explored in Alien vs. Predator) we didn't know we needed at this point.

Speaking of aliens with acid for blood, JoBlo's report on the trailer states a Xenomorph skull is seen at the beginning of the preview, so maybe we'll already see connections to 20th Century Studios' other big sci-fi horror IP ahead of a theatrical AvP reboot which even studio head Steve Asbell is keen on.

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Fran Ruiz

Fran Ruiz is our resident Star Wars guy. His hunger for movies and TV series is only matched by his love for video games. He got a BA of English Studies, focusing on English Literature, from the University of Malaga, in Spain, as well as a Master's Degree in English Studies, Multilingual and Intercultural Communication. On top of writing features and other longform articles for Space.com since 2021, he is a frequent collaborator of VG247 and other gaming sites. He also serves as associate editor over at Star Wars News Net and its sister site, Movie News Net.

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