PREY director Dan Trachtenberg returns with a new animated anthology for Hulu.
Dan Trachtenberg helped to reinvent the Predator franchise in 2022 with the release of Prey. The phrase game changer gets thrown around a fair amount, but it’s fair to say that the director’s wildly inventive, critically acclaimed prequel qualifies. So much so that Disney and 20th Century Studio have entrusted him with the future of the franchise.
This summer will also see the release of Predator: Killer of Killers. So, what is this, exactly? It’s a full-length animated movie that was first hinted at back in October of last year by 20th Century Studios head Steve Asbell. At the time, he was rather cagey about it, only saying that “there’s a second Predator movie that we have different plans for.”
We recently got a much, much better window into what those plans are, specifically. 20th Century Studios revealed the first trailer for Killer of Killers earlier this month, which you can watch right here, in addition to the first poster, which you can check out below. It revealed that the animated feature is actually a three-part anthology that will see human warriors of different sorts, in different time periods, battling the most deadly hunters in the galaxy. The official synopsis for the movie reads as follows:
“The anthology story follows three of the fiercest warriors in human history: a Viking raider guiding her young son on a bloody quest for revenge, a ninja in feudal Japan who turns against his Samurai brother in a brutal battle for succession, and a WWII pilot who takes to the sky to investigate an otherworldly threat to the Allied cause. But while all these warriors are killers in their own right, they are merely prey for their new opponent – the ultimate killer of killers.”
So we’re getting a World War II story, a Japanese Samurai tale set sometime between the 12th and 16th Century and a Viking revenge tale all in one movie. It’s also worth noting that this will be an exclusive streaming release on Hulu, much like Prey.
Trachtenberg co-directed the animated film alongside Josh Wassung of the animation company The Third Floor. This marks the company’s first feature-length film, but the studios’ work includes Marvel Studios movies, Amazon’s The Boys and more. So the project is in experienced hands. Micho Robert Rutare (Z Nation) wrote the script, working from a story he cooked up with Trachtenberg.
As for Trachtenberg, he was co-directing this movie while he was in production on Badlands. So he was rather busy. “Most characters are dealing with generational [issues], trying to break a cycle. All the chapters are different genre-wise,” the director explained at a press event, via Bloody Disgusting. “The movie is very much about the connection between the characters, as much as the stories themselves.”
The filmmaker also explained that all segments center around the same question: Who would be a unique challenge for the Predator? That’s one heck of a hook. Meanwhile, Trachtenberg also made it clear that this movie will serve as a complete story – not just a set up for something else to come in the future.
That’s not to say there won’t be more stories for Trachtenberg to tell in this universe down the line. Amber Midthunder has already made it very clear she’d be happy to return for Prey 2. Once Badlands hits theaters in November, Trachtenberg could very well look to do a more direct sequel to that movie. Or, he might want to move on from this franchise. Either way, fans are getting not one but two movies this year and there won’t be any threads left dangling. Trachtenberg plans to wrap it all up in a satisfying way.
Predator: Killer of Killers is streaming on Hulu beginning June 6.
