MLGG: Pop Culture News, Reviews and Interviews

Since Disney bought 20th Century Studios in 2019, fans of the Predator franchise – the rights for which, along with the Alien series, were part of the deal – have been desperate to see whether or not the House of Mouse would make use of a much maligned and often poorly treated series.

Despite a phenomenal first movie, the Predator series has struggled to regain its mojo since that 1987 film. Original star Arnold Schwarzenegger never returned to the series, though the fact that the lore sees alien hunters using Earth as a big game reserve with humans as their prey means that it wouldn’t necessarily make sense for him to come back anyway, the films have floundered with a succession of stars, writers and directors taking a crack at them.

The Dark Horse comics fared a lot better, especially in the late 80s and early 90s, perhaps hitting a high point with the first Aliens vs Predator crossover, which was a smart melding of the two monster movie franchises, despite its B-movie title (the two movies that brought Aliens and Predator together inexplicably set the action in the present day – and were pretty dreadful, by all accounts). An early 90s script – one of the greatest missed opportunities of all time – written by Hellboy movie scribe Peter Briggs stuck close to the source material and was brilliant, but always deemed too expensive to shoot.

Only the third movie – Predators, set on an alien (not capital ‘A’ alien Xenomorphs though) planet – came close to the quality of the first Predator film, but even that had some serious issues. We won’t even talk about Shane Black’s disastrously misjudged The Predator. Ugh.

However, all of that looks set to change now, with the first post-Fox movie in the franchise coming in August. The cleverly titled Prey is set a few hundred years ago, with the Predator taking on a Native American tribe and more besides. Directed by the ever-reliable Dan Trachtenberg, who also helmed the excellent 10 Cloverfield Lane, it looks very promising indeed.

After a far too brief teaser, the full trailer has now been released. Check it out for yourself below – this looks like a movie that can finally do justice to the franchise, though the fact that it’s not releasing theatrically perhaps reveals a lack of faith in the project by the suits at Disney. In any case, hopefully this is the start of the franchise’s rejuvenation. With release set for August, we won’t have too long to wait and see for ourselves.

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