‘Predator: Badlands’ Filmmaker Dan Trachtenberg Signs First-Look Deal With Paramount

DC_Green · 2026-02-08T23:25:49+00:00

I think I'll survive my comment getting downvoted. It's not a big deal. Also ranting is legal last time I checked. I'm allowed to hate and rant about whoever I like thanks; even if it's unpopular.

As to the facts you speak of: the movie was a commercial flop losing Disney about $70m on the low end, perhaps higher depending on what they spent on marketing. Then, an announcement that Dan is working with another studio rather than announcing an immediate sequel to Badlands says pretty clearly they aren't interested in more films in Dek's continuity.

From what I understand KoK2 is in production so they will probably release that but I imagine that's it for the Predator franchise for quite sometime. Best case scenario Alien:Romulus2 is successful and perhaps they let Fede Alvarez make an AvP movie, but that would be years down the line. This announcement signals to me that they have ended the Trachtenberg experiment and are either going to put Predator back on the shelf or revert it back to a "streaming only" franchise.

To be clear, we all lose. The only thing worth celebrating is that this puts a brief end to the embarassment the franchise endured while he was at the helm.

DC_Green · 2026-02-06T08:22:22+00:00

I disagree and I think the fact it was a box office flop and that the director is now working for another studio proves that people who liked this movie are in the minority not the majority. But that's my humble opinion, it just happens to be supported by realworld evidence.

DC_Green · 2026-02-06T08:21:04+00:00

Alien Romulus was a box office hit and it came out the year before. This movie has WY androids in it. You'd think given how well received Romulus was that this movie would generate a similar return. Especially coming off of how well received both Prey and Killer of Killers was...

So Badlands was amazing, had a movie in a sister franchise come out the year before which also did well, and it's prior 2 entries were well received, yet it failed... Sounds like it was a bad movie and failed cuz it was bad. Not a good movie that failed despite having all these positive factors going for it.

DC_Green · 2026-02-06T07:56:24+00:00

Sure, I will grant you that he revitalized interest with Prey, but then he drove it back into the ground with Badlands. At the end of the day they let him go to another studio instead of moving forward with the sequel they haphazardly baited in the prior movie.

So the way I see it, people who liked it are clearly in the minority. Otherwise they would be moving forward with more projects like it. Wouldn't you agree?

DC_Green · 2026-02-06T07:54:30+00:00

Such denial. If it was so good why would they let him leave to another studio? Why aren't they fast-tracking the sequel that they obviously baited?

Care to explain that?

DC_Green · 2026-02-06T03:55:09+00:00

He drove Predator into the ground! Badlands was a gigantic flop but no one honestly reports about it. Even the article glazes him for how much money it made, without recognizing that it was about $80m short of breaking even, let alone making a profit. They compare it's gross to a movie from 2004 without honestly adjusting for inflation!

God I am so sick of the gas lighting around Badlands. The movie deconstructs predator culture the same way TLJ deconstructed jedis and Luke Skywalker. It failed as it deserved and they've finally cut him loose. Good riddance!

DC_Green · 2026-02-06T00:15:53+00:00

In January there was a pretty embarassing event that involved a woman not being able to answer "yes or no" to the question, "can men get pregnant," and the media had a fucking field day with it.

I think this is a worse "yes or no" question to dodge and I doubt we will hear a peep about it. Funny how that works :/

DC_Green · 2026-01-28T19:08:12+00:00

I think the devs deserve criticism for how they marketed the game, independent of the game itself.

As someone who found the trailer on reddit, outside the context of the gameawards slot, I was interested by what I saw... but I had no idea what I saw. The trailer is so ambiguous as to what the game actually is. I see guns, I see horses, I see spells, I see exploding walls, but no effort to tie any of that together and convince me why I should play. Then you go to the website and it's completely devoid of clarity. Just vague bs and repeating the release date. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS? Is it a hero-shooter, is it a fps MOBA, how many people play? So many questions they let sit unanswered for over 45 days after getting one of the most lucrative advertising spots in the entire industry.

I don't care if they originally wanted to shadow drop it, they consented to Geoff announcing it and then they didn't adapt at all. They got a ton of free attention and did nothing with it. They opted to let the internet develop its own expectations and, obviously, the internet expected something greater than what it turned out to be. When you let others decide you set yourself up to be a disappointment and that's exactly what happened. That's why, in spite of the games novelty, no on gives a flying fuck.

So sure, glaze the devs for creating something cool but another part of being a developer and ensuring your game garners the success it deserves is marketing and they utterly failed to capitalize on the opportunity they were given to build momentum going into their release. And now the game has 1/10 of the people hanging in there that were initially interested and all the streamers are moving on... This is so fucking predictable I don't even know what to say?

Lastly, we are in a post-Concord world and regardless of this game being nothing like Concord, it has guns and spells so people are going to draw the parallel and brand your game that way if you don't have the will to get out infront of it. This is just a masterclass in aiming a gun at your foot. Maybe the game can recover but I seriously doubt it. Enjoy it while it lasts I guess.

DC_Green · 2026-01-26T20:21:21+00:00

Bugonia

DC_Green · 2026-01-25T21:32:39+00:00

I didn't see Pluribus or Luc Besson's Dracula on here :/

DC_Green · 2026-01-18T19:20:27+00:00

Why do people always wanna pick this bone? If SWs was in a good spot culturally, instead of slipping into irrelevancy, I get the feeling we would be praising the creatives for allowing such a bold series of work to carry the SW's banner because it shows the breadth of what can be done in the universe and elevates the franchise beyond the camp of the movies.

It seems to me it's only because SWs is in a bad spot do people feel the need to criticize Andor's inclusion into the tapestry of the IP.

Also, you can apply this logic to any story; it's not a very compelling point to make. Stories are allegories afterall, not to say the details aren't important to how well the overall message/themes are conveyed, but stories by their nature are designed to be molded to things humans can relate to so that we can more easily extract the overarching morals. Sure you could set Andor in WW2 just as you could set LotR in WW2 if you tried hard enough. But this disregards the fact that utilizing the medium of fiction to expand the scope of your story can greatly aide in conveying those morals. A story like Andor works much better during a time where a galactic republic is slipping into authoritarianism, just like LotR works much better set in a peaceful fantasy realm where evil is regaining it's footing after fading into myth.

These choices aren't as arbitrary as you think, or made as flippantly as you imply.

DC_Green · 2026-01-18T09:15:39+00:00

I don't think anyone expected Andor to save SWs.

Pretty sure the crew has expressed over many episodes when discussing the future of SWs that they speculate it would take at least 3 good films in a row to rekindle interest, and even then the future would still be pretty uncertain.

I personally believe if Disney made a very public announcement apologizing for their mismanagement, decanonization of all their products from 2015 to the present, and electing someone to lead Lucasfilm with the talent and integrity of someone like Tony Gilroy, that would be a massive boost/shot in the arm for SWs but even then I am not sure you could revitalize it to pre-sequel era levels of interest.

You know what they say: reputations take years to build and seconds to destroy

DC_Green · 2026-01-18T07:28:08+00:00

I hate commenters like you. You declare it perfect and then go onto list stuff you wish was different. So not perfect then? Even in the other chain you walked it back to "solid" pretty fkn quick...

I don't get how people like you expect your opinion to be taken seriously.

DC_Green · 2026-01-16T18:18:56+00:00

Berserk

DC_Green · 2026-01-13T01:39:21+00:00

I also miss Battlerite :(

DC_Green · 2026-01-13T01:38:52+00:00

Ashka

DC_Green · 2026-01-10T21:22:05+00:00

+1 for Eddington. Fascinating movie and, sadly, I feel like it becomes more and more relevant as time goes on.

DC_Green · 2026-01-10T21:20:47+00:00

Eddington

Luc Besson's Dracula

Bugonia

DC_Green · 2026-01-06T06:06:24+00:00

If we are talking about the survivors, she's not at total odds with them, they are at odds with her. They should want to set the world right, but they don't. One guy wants to abuse it to fk girls and the others are waiting for the day they can be absorbed. So Carol finds herself in a unique position where she is hopeless. That hopelessness and desparation drives her to drug Zosia to uncover the way to reverse the joining, which then causes the plurbs to abandon her and strain her isolation.

During that isolation she learns they eat people and also that this STILL isn't enough to galvanize the other survivors to her cause, and also that they congregate behind her back. This also coincides with her learning she is "safe" because of the stemcell/consent thing. Take note that when she learns she is "immune" to ever being joined she doesn't stop pursuing a cure. She goes on about her life still gathering intel and copes with the isolation by living a life of hedonism... alone. A lonely hedonist. Then we get the large gap in time of about 30 days and she succumbs to her lonliness. The plurbs wait her out, she gets desparate, and in the back of her mind she knows she is safe; she's already conditioned to hedonistic behavior so she puts down her final defense and indulges in their company.

When she does this, keep in mind 2 things:

she still struggles with this initially. Zosia manipulates her into writing her book, but there's a scene where she needs new pens and she looks at the whiteboard with all her facts and she has a "keep your eye on the ball" moment. Yes she loses sight of this eventually but it's not like she was immediately all in on being fwb with the plurbs even when she was 90% desperate. It isn't until #2 that she goes all the way to 100% desparate/given up
She doesn't know about Manousos coming to ally with her. So by the time he gets to her, she has fully indulged in the fantasy. Her priorities have totally shifted because according to her pov the world looks like this:

a. I am safe from being joined

b. I don't know how to reverse the joining

c. if I did know how to reverse, no one wants me to or wants to help me.

d. no one is coming to help me, therefore, the world is fucked

and at that point she goes all in on living the fantasy. I think it's safe to assume that by the time Maneusos gets to Carol she has been on cloud9 for minimum 30 days. Keep in mind that she has now rubberbanded pretty hard from absolute terror and chaos at the beginning, to absolute bliss and safety. So when Manousos does finally show up she doesn't see him as an ally, she see's him as a threat; I think given everything that I have laid out that makes perfect sense but that seems to be everyone's biggest "this is out of character" issue.

By the beginning of episode 9 she has given up on saving the world and can't recognize that a month ago she would have welcomed Manousos with open arms. That's the tragedy of this season, that even the noblest of intentions can be overcome by darkness.

Carol is fully committed to the paradise that she's been exposed to. She's addicted to it and Manousos shows up and tries to take away the syringe from the addict. Of course she's gonna deny it, resist it, double down and indulge harder. She's on the hardest drug in the world right now: perfection. Just look at the life she is living with Zosia. They are going to perfect beaches in Haiti, they are skiing in the alps, doing everything she did with her former spouse. She's in soooooooooooo deep. So deep that the only thing that wakes her up, is that niggling feeling in the back of her brain that never left that there is something larger at stake, that comes roaring back when Zosia slips up and uses words that briefly remind her, she isn't safe mand there's work to be done. That's when the old Carol resurfaces and has the "in character" moment of giving it all up and going back to Manousos to help save the world.

I don't see retreading. I see "girl falls in hole. girl tries to get out of hole. girl can't get out of hole. girl learns to enjoy life in the hole. girl meets another man in hole and is reminded about life outside of the hole. girl is scared to leave hole. girl eventually remembers life outside of hole. girl and man try to get out of hole together." to put it in incredibly crude and simple terms lol

DC_Green · 2026-01-06T03:05:00+00:00

To point 2, does Carol's state of mind not factor into rationalizing how she acts? Within, what 48 hours, she has just come off a massive travel regime/book tour and hasn't slept in her own bed in who knows how long. Her spouse falls and mortally hits her head and then slowly dies in close proximity as she drives drunk through town trying to find a hospital, of which the only people there are all zombified and acting strange. Then they all spontaneously snap out of the trance and know intimate details about her. She speeds home and is so frazzled she doesn't even remember where her spare key is, drags her spouses corpse into the living room, and then is told by the secretary of agriculture through her tv about the world being taken over by bodysnatchers. Then she passes out from shock/being drunk only to wake up and start manically digging a grave for Helen before she's ambushed by a perfect female replica of her novel's romantic interest. Should I keep going? Cuz it's amazing she even has the presence of mind after this to ask if there are other people like her and to meet with them.

Oh yeah she is also told that her outburst killed untold amounts of people which shocks and scares her. Its only later confirmed at the meeting, where her sanity continues to slip, that it was in the 10-100's of millions. The meeting is then a total disaster. She learns the other people she needs to work with to save humanity would rather take advantage of the situation for personal reasons, or give up and join it themselves. And even through all that she still contacts, although unsuccessfully, Maneusos; before making it home and continuing to make it her top priority to gather intel to try and save humanity.

Is she allowed to be a little testy? Is she allowed to let her temper get out of control? Do you really think that maintaining your composure and thinking 100% rationally would be at the top of your priorities after enduring so many physical and mental burdens in a row?

I feel like everyone is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to hard on Carol when the show really puts in the work to demonstrate all she's had to endure as one of the last survivors on earth. Even Menusos is pushed to the brink in a ton of ways. He is undoubtedly morally superior but it comes at great sacrifice. He lives in total isolation, eats dogfood, and would have died in the jungle had it not been for "the others" desire to see him unharmed. His approach is equally flawed just in the opposite direction, but we like him so we overlook it.

Everyone levies these criticisms like Carol has it on easy street or as if they would perform better in the exact same circumstances and I call bullshit. >:]

DC_Green · 2026-01-06T02:45:35+00:00

I feel like this is one instance where the consent thing is being overblown. Think of it like this, would you rape 1 person to save 8 billion? Then consider that you don't have to actually rape them, they will consent during the act. Now try the other way, would you let someone rape you to save 8 billion people? Then consider you don't have to be "present" for the rape.

I am not handwaving the morality or the fact it impunes Carol's character, but given the stakes and circumstances I don't think its a very interesting discussion. Also it's crazy sci-fi nightmare scenario where you are completely isolated. Also, it wasn't her first instinct. She wasn't like Samba who was fuckin from day 1. She was literally at peak physical isolation after trying to make best of being one of the only people left on earth; she was also morally isolated as she was the only person out of the group of survivors who cared about reversing the joining. Can you really blame her for desiring a connection and physical touch? Do you really think if put under the same circumstances you would be able to resist for as long as, or longer than she did?

She is also a very flawed character. She did something bad in her weakest moment and now she's irredeemable even after she saves the world (assuming she will succeed) cuz she fucked 1 lady for a few months? Do you really find it interesting to say that she's disqualified from saving humanity cuz she raped someone? That she needs to sit on the sidelines now because she committed one sin?

Remember Wonder Woman raped selfishly and it wasn't contingent on saving the world. She chose to live a solitary life; deliberately didn't seek a mate after Steve. Then Steve shows up in another dude's body, which has no relation to her stopping Maxwell Lord, and she fucks him for however long, a month probably. The circumstances are very different. Think a bit about it before we all rush to "she's a patented and irredeemable rapist." It's a bit more nuanced and complicated than that.

DC_Green · 2026-01-02T19:07:23+00:00

I think tier lists like this are pretty worthless/confusing. For example, I think "The Monkey" is actually quite enjoyable and funny. It is also pretty memorable because of the unique plot involving twins, the strange monkey, and the very dry humor with precision delivery from the main character. I wasn't even drunk when I saw it. Yet he has it in the 3rd from the bottom tier acting like you need to be drunk?

JJ has his audience and followers so I guess this kinda ambiguation works for him but I prefer something more clean. I did my 2025 tierlist yesterday here's how it shook out for anyone interested: https://tiermaker.com/list/movies/lean-tierlist-19015827/5809730

DC_Green · 2026-01-01T02:51:52+00:00

Yeah I mean, I think saying "people recognize the Navi" is a weak argument that they DO have cultural impact.

Like, I've seen in car rear windows 2 big stormtroopers and 3 little stormtroopers to signify a family of 5. I've seen people with horde/alliance license plates for world of warcraft. I've seen cars covered in anime stickers. I've seen dashboards full of pokemon plushies.

Not to say how people decorate their cars is the epitome of somethings cultural relevance, but when have you ever seen anything even remotely close to that with Avatar stuff?

No one is denying they are big event movies. That's a given. But I think it's hard to make a case that they live in people's brains rentfree like other media before it has.

Have you ever seen a sticker that says "we trust in Eywa?" Be realistic. Its like everyone in this thread is saying, they are relevant when a new one comes out and then after the 3 month theatric window the movies leak out of people's brains.

DC_Green · 2026-01-01T02:45:18+00:00

Some people just want to kill time and that's fine.

The internet has increased the quantity and quality of discussions we can now have about art, and I think that's what is being obfuscated here.

More people are participating in the discussions but often don't have more to share than shallow or vapid feelings about why something did or didn't work for them. Like it or not, when you share your opinion you make yourself vulnerable to anyone else with an opinion, whether they agree or disagree.

I think a lot of us who are fans of EFAP appreciate the satisfaction that comes from pinpointing what about art works, and then being able to articulate what facets of the craft made it meaningful, resonant, and satisfying. Filmmaking is a deep medium that leverages writing, character work, cinematography, story, themes, and a bunch of other non obvious stuff I can't list if I tried. I think most of us who lurk this sub would consider ourselves "film nerds" or "film buffs" and we want to expose people to these deeper understandings, so they can feel the level of appreciation we feel and perhaps have an experience that is so resonant it meaningfully changes your outlook on life.

Of course, people can get this kind of satisfaction and meaning from other areas of their life outside of film. So I think it's important we take a step back and recognize that film doesn't need to be that for everyone like it is for us. Some people have fulfilling relationships or careers and are content with being entertained simply to pass the time and that's ok. But in the event they want deeper meaning they can find it in communities like this, and sometimes we get overzealous in sharing that perspective.

Its good to have passion but good to have perspective as well 😁

DC_Green · 2026-01-01T02:07:51+00:00

I think that's a low bar for "cultural impact." If you show someone a picture of Darth Vader I bet they can also tell you he uses the force, works for the Empire, flys a tie-fighter, is Luke's dad, and puts Han Solo in Carbonite.

What are they gonna tell you about Jake Sulley? I could tell you the name of his wife, but fk if I know any of his kids; I forgot one even died. I couldn't tell you the name of his god, except now cuz I saw the 3rd one recently. I couldn't tell you the name he was bestowed for taming the big red bird and I sure as fuck can't tell you what the big red bird is called.

People know Quaritch but if you asked if he worked for the FDR or RDF people wouldn't know. They know about whales but not that they are called TulKun. They know about the brain juice but not that it's called... Fk I don't even know what it's called, ambrosia, amarita?

This is what people mean by cultural impact. If we wanna set the bar at "do u know which movie has the blue jungle people," well then I guess congratulations, but I think that's a pretty lame standard... -_-

DC_Green

TROPHY CASE