Welcome to the year of Predator. Dan Trachtenberg, Prey director and current architect of the Predator franchise, has two projects coming out this year. One is the live-action Predator: Badlands, and the other is Predator: Killer Of Killers, the first animated installment in the series. And if you’re worried that the medium may have softened the monster’s violent edges, fear not. The film, premiering June 6 on Hulu, is firmly rated R, as the bloody Predator: Killer Of Killers trailer teases.
According to a synopsis from 20th Century Studios, “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.”
Like Prey, which takes place on Earth in 1719, the Predator: Killer Of Killers trailer expands the franchise’s lore to new time periods, affording some really cool and culturally specific action sequences. Though each story features an Earth-based protagonist (unlike the upcoming Badlands, which is “set in the future on a remote planet”), the tale is not necessarily Earth-bound; towards the end of the trailer, the World War II pilot is seen as a prisoner of the Predator, trapped on a ship and seemingly far, far from home. Trachtenberg co-directed the film with Josh Wassung (from animation company The Third Floor) and co-created the story with Micho Robert Rutare (Z Nation), who pens the screenplay. The voice cast includes Lindsay LaVanchy, Louis Ozawa, Rick Gonzalez, and Michael Biehn.
