Surprise! Predator: Badlands is Actually Going to Theaters
And Blade is still delayed.
Disney recently updated its release schedule, and like most Disney updates, there’s good and bad. In this case, the bad update is that the seemingly cursed Marvel Blade remake, starring Mahershala Ali, won’t be premiering in its previously announced November 7, 2025 release date. Considering we’re coming up on a year out from release and there is no director attached to the project, that’s not very surprising.
But what is surprising is the movie taking over Blade’s slot on the release calendar. According to Deadline, Predator: Badlands, the latest Predator movie by Dan Trachtenberg, will get a theatrical release next fall. The movie was first announced as a Hulu original, much like its predecessor Prey, but will now get a chance in theaters.
Prey brought the Predator franchise into the present by exploring the distant past.
This comes after the success of Trachtenberg’s Prey, a classic creature feature that many fans wanted to see on the big screen, but was relegated to Hulu and could only be seen at home. The movie garnered rave reviews, basically revitalized the franchise, and paved the way for Trachtenberg to get this gig, but was given a huge disservice by putting it beside How I Met Your Father and Family Guy. Nevertheless, it was a huge hit, and was the biggest-ever premiere for the streamer at the time.
With Predator: Badlands, Disney (and by extension 20th Century Studios) is learning from its past mistakes. There’s no telling how successful Prey would be in theaters, but by keeping it on Hulu, it made nothing at the box office. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, and by the same logic, any movie released to streaming will inherently make less money at the box office than a theatrically released one.
Prey was a huge success on streaming, so now we’ll see how Dan Trachtenberg’s Predator will do on the silver screen.
We still don’t know if Predator: Badlands will be as good as its predecessor Prey. At this point, the only thing we know is that it will star Elle Fanning and will be set in the future. But knowing that it will come to theaters is a great omen, as it means faith is placed in the work itself. Hopefully, the move from streaming to theaters will retain the success of Trachtenberg’s take on the Predator. And if not, well, at least it bought Blade some more time.
