Prey upended expectations — now there are high ones for Prey 2

10.10.2023 - 18:45 / polygon.com / Fox

For years before director Dan Trachtenberg was established enough to get a Predator movie made, he imagined a scene where a lone Comanche warrior faced off against a bone-armored hunter from beyond the stars. That vision panned out into a worthy studio gamble; when Trachtenberg’s Predator prequel Prey hit Hulu in 2022, it was lauded as a reinvention of a tired franchise and one of the Disney-acquired 20th Century Studios’ first straight-to-streaming hits. Today, Trachtenberg says it’s hard to shake what made the project so special to him — especially with sequel talk aflutter.

“While making the movie, we really enjoyed conjuring up all the special unique things that we could do, not only just in this franchise but also in this genre, that would be unexpected,” he says when I ask about the status of a Prey 2. “Some things happened that are very expected, but some things were very much not. And so all that stuff was and continues to be really fun to think about and explore and… who knows?”

A recent issue of the industry trade Production Weekly flagged Prey 2 as a project in active development at 20th Century Studios, leading alien-slasher enthusiasts to foam at the mouth in anticipation. For now, Trachtenberg is playing it cool. The director wasn’t ready to spill any details while promoting Prey’s 4K Blu-ray release, but agrees there’s potential in a sequel, and one that could play in theaters the next time around. That was certainly his intention with the original film, even if the plan was always to debut it on Hulu.

“I think Prey had big-screen potential!” he says. “I never considered Prey as Oh, this is just for streaming. No one ever said, ‘Let’s execute differently because we know it’s for streaming.’ It wasn’t ever in the ether for us.”

In fact, according to Trachtenberg, there was little to no pushback from the studio over his pitch to swerve away from the hyper-masculine war-movie vibe of the original 1987 Predator. He chalks that up to emailing the right people at the right time. (Email: still powerful!) Bit by the bug of a great idea and navigating Hollywood with a glow after the success of 10 Cloverfield Lane, Trachtenberg messaged 20th Century Fox executives with his elevator pitch for Prey, even though the studio was already working with writer-director Shane Black on what would become 2018’s The Predator. Trachtenberg thought Fox could make both.

“That’s where the name Prey came from,” he says. “Because I was sure there was going to be a new Predator trilogy, but I thought maybe we called this one Prey to function sort of like in Star Wars with [Solo] and Rogue One. I said, ‘Could this be a thing?’ — it was that casual. And then it was like, Oh my god, this is too cool!”

Fox was ready to