Predator: Badlands director Dan Trachtenberg has revealed that the new movie could have been Prey 2, but he ultimately decided that there are other, bigger things waiting for Naru.
"I think I would say there's a bigger plan down the line," Trachtenberg told Dexerto, when asked if he considered bringing Naru back for Badlands. "I did think about the pairing before it was Thia, but then I thought, 'Well, then I'm not doing the premise,' and I really wanted to do the premise: the Predator is protagonist, and no humans in the movie. And so it became further down the line we can do some cooler things, maybe."
Released in 2022, Prey is a Predator spin-off set in the 18th Century. The movie follows Naru, a young Comanche woman played by Amber Midthunder, who must protect her tribe from a Predator as she tries to prove herself as a hunter.
The character made a surprise cameo – in animated form – in recent release Predator: Killer of Killers, when she was spotted in a cryo pod in the movie's final scene, held captive by the Yautja alongside other humans who have also killed Predators (including Mike Harrigan and Dutch Schaefer).
Instead of teaming up with Naru, then, Badlands protagonist Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi), an outcast Yautja, joins forces with Weyland-Yutani synth Thia (Elle Fanning) instead.
Predator: Badlands arrives in theaters on November 7. For more, check out our Predator: Badlands review, or get up to speed with our guide to watching the Predator movies in order.
