10 Cloverfield Lane's Dan Trachtenberg is making a secret Predator movie that's not a secret anymore
Where does a long-running film franchise go after already pulling an Aliens-style escalation and a semi-back-to-basics reboot from a fan-favorite filmmaker who “gets” the material better than some studio mercenary? Hopefully 10 Cloverfield Lane director Dan Trachtenberg has some ideas, because it’s now his job to figure out how to make a fifth Predator movie (that’s five not counting Alien Vs. Predator and Alien Vs. Predator: Requiem). Well, not entirely his job, because Patrick Aison (Kingdom, Jack Ryan, Treadstone) is actually writing the script, but Trachtenberg is going to direct Predator 5.
And that’s all we know, thanks to Deadline. But, as alluded to up above, the Predator series has already gone the obvious routes to try and jumpstart the brand. Predator in 1987 was just dudes (one dude in particular) fighting an alien killer in the jungle. Predator 2 was a city instead of a jungle. Predators was dudes in a jungle, but with the added twist of there being a bunch of alien killers. Then, finally, Shane Black’s The Predator in 2018 was about a squad of quippy action heroes mostly fighting one alien killer, taking on the basic premise of the first movie (in which Black appeared as an actor) but with a new setting and new sequel hooks.
So what’s Trachtenberg planning? Deadline doesn’t say, but he’s definitely been planning. After this news broke, Trachtenberg tweeted that his Predator sequel was “meant to be a surprise,” saying he had been working on it for four years and is now “very sad” that people won’t “discover” the movie in the way he had intended. In other words, this was going to be a secret new Predator movie—in the vein of Blair Witch and 10 Cloverfield Lane itself—but Deadline spoiled the surprise. Apparently, this new Predator movie is a project that was originally announced as Skulls, with Discussing Film saying in 2019 that it was about a “Comanche woman who goes against gender norms and traditions to become a warrior.” Hey, what are the odds she meets a Predator while going against gender norms? Pretty good, right?