Elle Fanning In Talks to Lead Predator Universe Movie Badlands

Hulu’s The Great star Elle Fanning could go toe-to-toe with the Predator in Dan Trachtenberg ’s Badlands .

Per Variety , Fanning is in early talks to headline the standalone Predator movie for 20th Century Studios following the success of the 2022 prequel Prey . While details about the plot and its place in the Predator timeline are unknown, Prey director Trachtenberg will return to the director’s chair with a script he co-wrote with Prey screenwriter Patrick Aison.

The younger sister of Dakota Fanning, Elle Fanning found early success with small roles beginning with 2001’s I Am Sam and 2008’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. She elevated to leading roles including Princess Aurora in Disney’s Maleficent in 2014 and returned for the sequel Maleficent: Mistress of Evil in 2019. From 2020 to 2023, Fanning played Catherine the Great in Hulu’s period satire series The Great which earned the star nominations at the Primetime Emmys and the Golden Globes.

The history of the Predator franchise

Created by Jim Thomas and John Thomas, 1987’s Predator starred Arnold Schwarzenegger as the leader of a paramilitary rescue team encountering the outer-worldly alien hunter during an operation in Central America gone wrong. A critical and commercial success upon release, Predator became a seminal sci-fi thriller of the ‘80s that elevated the careers of Schwarzenegger and director John McTiernan.

While the Predator franchise expanded to successful comic books and video games for decades, its sequels often fell short of the original’s quality including 1990’s Los Angeles-set Predator 2, 2010’s Predators, and 2018’s The Predator. Additionally, the Alien crossover movies Alien vs. Predator in 2004 and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem in 2007 were met with mostly negative reviews and underwhelming box office.

All that changed with 2022’s Prey on Hulu . Set in 1719, the prequel followed a Comanche warrior (Amber Midthunder) who has to protect her tribe from the Predator within the Great Plains. Critics praised Prey by hailing the best Predator installment since the original. As Badlands moves forward, Trachtenberg remains in active development on a Prey sequel with Midthunder’s character possibly returning.

Badlands does not have a release date.