We’re Getting a Sequel to the Best Film in the ‘Predator’ Franchise

Predator fans are eating this week, as 20th Century Studios announced not one, but TWO new films in the storied sci-fi/horror franchise. Dan Trachtenberg, who helmed 2022’s excellent prequel Prey, is on board to write and direct a direct sequel to Prey and a standalone entry titled Badlands.

What is ‘Prey 2’ about?

SPOILER ALERT: This post spoils the ending of Prey.

Prey 2 would presumably be set in the Comanche Nation in the 1700s. Prey gave audiences the franchise’s first female protagonist in Naru (Amber Midthunder), a fierce young Indigenous woman desperate to prove herself as a worthy hunter. With support from her older brother Taabe (Dakota Beavers), Naru is eager to show the tribe and her family that she has the skills. Naru gets the opportunity of a lifetime when a Predator (Dane Diliegro) lands in the Northern Great Plains in search of his next hunt.

Naru and Taabe face off against the perils of nature, French trappers, and the Predator. The film ends with Naru trapping the Predator and using his helmet to kill him. She returns to her tribe victorious, with the Predator’s head and a pistol she got from a French trapper.

Super fans will notice that it’s the same pistol we see in 1990’s Predator 2. After LAPD officer Michael R. Harrigan (Danny Glover) kills the Predator in the film’s finale, fellow Predators disembark from their ship to retrieve the body. As a trophy, one of the Predators gives Harrigan the same flintlock pistol.

The animated end credits sequence sees three Predator ships arriving on Earth and heading towards the tribe. It seems likely that the predators returned to seek revenge, taking claim of the pistol as a trophy of their own.

Who stars in Prey 2?

If Prey 2 is a direct sequel, we can expect to see Amber Midthunder reprise her role as Naru. But no casting announcements have been made yet. In an interview with Collider, Midthunder mused on her character’s future, saying,

“That was always how I felt about it because, you know, the movie is such a journey that definitely as the character by the end it feels like — well, also, there’s the — I think that it does in part feel like that. I think it’s a hope for the best, prepare for the worst kind of a situation. I think that it feels as though they’re not gonna come back, but there are ultimately obviously all kinds of threats out there that are unforeseen. Even like the French fur trappers in that interaction and stuff like that, those are all discoveries of things that are out there that they had no idea about. So I think that it’s not necessarily preparing for more predators or whatever; I think it’s just there [are] unforeseen threats and we gotta be ready.”

When is Prey 2 coming out?

Prey 2 is still in early development, so there’s no release date or window yet.

(featured image: Hulu)