Over the last few years, Disney and 20th Century have successfully revitalized the Predator franchise. Under the stewardship of director Dan Trachtenberg, three acclaimed new movies have been released since 2022. Prey really got audiences excited about seeing more of the Yautja killing humans across time and space.

While the series has been around since 1987, when Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Dutch took on the deadly aliens for the first time, its relevancy became a bigger question after 2018’s The Predator underperformed. Trachtenberg helped bring the series back to life in an exciting way, setting up massive stories to come. But now the fate of the sci-fi series is up in the air and at the worst possible time.

2025 Was The Best Year Ever For The Predator Franchise

Prey deserves a lot of credit for the present interest in the franchise, as its arguably the best Predator movie ever. Yet, the biggest and brightest year for the series came last year. This is due to Trachtenberg spearheading the dual releases of Predator: Killer of Killers on Hulu and Predator: Badlands in theaters.

Killer of Killers is an animated anthology film, showing humanity fighting Yautja across various eras, before the separate stories unite in the finale. The response to the fresh new entry in this series was overwhelming, giving it a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes with critics. And with the excitement created by Killer of Killers‘ credits scene, it really did an excellent job of pushing the franchise to new places.

Then, Badlands came out a few months later, marking the first movie in this series to follow a Yautja protagonist. Trachtenberg again delivered something we’ve never seen before, not only through Dek’s storyline, but also by having Weyland-Yutani from Alien factor in heavily.

By the time Predator: Badlands ends, Trachtenberg delivers more tantalizing teases of what could come next. He’s been juggling multiple stories in the franchise, but it all appears to be building to a single, crossover event film of some kind. There was a clear direction for the series under his vision.

So long as he was around, there would be nothing but confidence in Predator‘s future. And with Badlands breaking the franchise’s box office record, it seemed like a forgone conclusion that Disney and 20th Century would greenlight another installment for Trachtenberg to tackle immediately.

Dan Trachtenberg’s New Career Move Makes Predator’s Future Unclear

Rather than Disney keeping Trachtenberg busy with Predator, the filmmaker has now found a new home. It’s been announced that Trachtenberg has signed a first-look deal with Paramount Pictures. It will run for three years and see him direct, produce, and develop new projects for Paramount.

The trouble for Predator comes with the exclusivity that typically comes with first-look deals like this. Paramount is giving Trachtenberg this deal so that he’ll spend the next three years working on projects for them, not rival studios, like Disney. If the Badlands director plans to make good on this deal, there may not be an opportunity for him to work on new Predator movies.

There is a chance that Trachtenberg’s deal with Paramount does not come with exclusivity. Previously, J.J. Abrams signed a first-look deal with Paramount and still made two Star Wars films for Disney during the contract’s length. It’s possible that Trachtenberg could be allowed to work on new Predator movies, but at the very least, they won’t be his sole priority like before.

And if the Paramount deal does prevent him from working with the Yautja franchise for three years, the question then becomes whether Disney will wait for him or find another voice to enter the mix. An understanding could even be in place between the two parties that the franchise needed a small breather after 2025, giving him an opening to secure this first-look deal.

But if that’s not the case, then it starts to look bad. Was Badlands‘ box office not good enough to warrant further investments by Disney? Were there conflicts about the creative direction?

Considering how successful Predator has been under Dan Trachtenberg, I hope he remains the key creative guiding its future, even if that means we have to wait three years for the Paramount deal to end for that to happen.

Created by

Jim Thomas, John Thomas

First Film

Predator

Cast

Carl Weathers, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kevin Peter Hall, Peter Cullen, Derek Mears, Danny Glover, Gary Busey, Adrien Brody, Topher Grace, Walton Goggins, Françoise Yip, Boyd Holbrook, Olivia Munn, Amber Midthunder, Dakota Beavers

Movie(s)

Predator, Predator 2, Predators, Predator, Prey