10 Years Ago, the Director of 'Predator: Badlands' Proved Why He’s Already One of the Greatest Sci-Fi Filmmakers

Now that it’s available on Hulu, Predator: Badlands is climbing up the streaming charts and continuing the newfound Predator renaissance that action movie fans have found themselves in since the release of Prey in 2022. But as much as it may seem like that movie — a straight-to-Hulu release — practically came out of nowhere, it and Badlands are actually just further evidence of director Dan Trachtenberg’s skills when it comes to sci-fi franchises. In fact, it was his very first feature film that actually came out of nowhere and immediately solidified his status as an exciting new filmmaker.

Trachtenberg has just four feature films under his belt: Badlands, Prey, the animated spin-off Predator: Killer of Killers, and his debut feature, 10 Cloverfield Lane. That movie, a secret successor to the Matt Reeves-directed and J.J. Abrams-produced found footage sci-fi horror movie Cloverfield, holds a 91 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and made nearly 10 times its reported $15 million budget at the box office. With that being the entirety of his resume at the time, it’s easy to see why 20th Century Studios felt comfortable setting him loose on the Yautja (a name for the Predator race that Trachtenberg finally got to enter into onscreen canon).

Why Was ‘10 Cloverfield Lane’ Such an Unexpected Hit?

The original Cloverfield was a pretty big hit, but a lot of that was thanks to a marketing gimmick that involved Paramount releasing a teaser trailer without any information other than the release date and a clip of the Statue of Liberty getting trashed. It was a fun trick, and it never occurred to anyone that Abrams and the studio would be able to pull it off a second time, especially when 2016’s 10 Cloverfield Lane was promoted as a relatively straightforward thriller. If anything, the “Cloverfield” in the title seemed like little more than an homage to Abrams and his Bad Robot production company — but that was, of course, not the case.

Starring John Goodman, John Gallagher Jr., and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, the plot follows a woman who wakes up in an underground bunker after a car accident. Her captor explains that he saved her life and the life of another man after some kind of “attack” poisoned the air, but his convenient explanations and general scariness make them doubt his story, and it’s not that long before they’re trying to escape. Unfortunately, spoiler alert, he was mostly telling the truth, and they’re in the middle of an alien invasion.

It’s not canonically the same aliens from the original Cloverfield, but that’s a crucial detail that foreshadows the rest of Trachtenberg’s career (so far). He didn’t set out to make Cloverfield 2 (and the movie wasn’t even intended to be related to Cloverfield at all until very late), and yet he put together a movie that maintains the spirit of the original without cheapening it or directly addressing any of its plot points. It’s a fascinating balancing act that he pulled off again with Prey, despite it and 10 Cloverfield Lane being completely different approaches to sci-fi horror.

Prey is effectively unrelated to any other Predator movie, beyond the flintlock pistol Easter egg, and yet it retains the spirit of the original without cheapening it. The same then goes for Predator: Badlands, which is unrelated to any other Predator movie (including Prey) but it retains the spirit of the series. In an industry that seems to be eternally beholden to franchises and sequels and spin-offs, a filmmaker like Trachtenberg who seems to have an excellent knack for juggling good storytelling and franchise demands could be invaluable.