Predator: Badlands (2025): Cast, Characters, Story, And Lore
Predator: Badlands is a science fiction action film directed by Dan Trachtenberg and written by Patrick Aison. It was the seventh main installment in the Predator franchise and one of the series' biggest departures. Instead of making the Predator the outside threat again, the film placed a young outcast Yautja named Dek at the center of the story. After crash-landing on the deadly planet Genna, he was forced to survive its wildlife, pursue the apex predator known as the Kalisk, and reluctantly work alongside a damaged Weyland-Yutani android named Thia. It put Yautja Prime on screen and used the name Yautja in a live-action film, along with clan rank, family, and Predator culture spoken on camera.
Film Overview
Released in 2025, Predator: Badlands followed up Dan Trachtenberg's work on Prey, but it did not repeat that film's structure. This time the setting was not Earth, but a hostile "death planet" called Genna. The protagonist was not a human warrior fighting to survive a Predator hunt. It was a young Predator trying to survive, earn status, and prove that he deserved to live. The film also tied Predator more directly to Alien universe lore through the presence of Weyland-Yutani androids. The Yautja material, Genna, and the Company link made Badlands feel larger than most earlier Predator movies.
Plot Summary
The story began on Yautja Prime, where Dek was treated as weak because he was smaller than the other members of his Yautja clan. He wanted to prove himself to his father, the clan leader Njohrr, by hunting the Kalisk, an apex predator on the planet Genna. Before he could properly begin that trial, Njohrr decided Dek was too weak to be worth keeping alive and ordered Dek's older brother Kwei to kill him. Kwei refused, helped Dek escape, and was brutally executed by Njohrr after losing an arm in the fight. Dek was launched toward Genna on Kwei's ship, watching his brother die without being able to stop it.
Once on Genna, Dek quickly lost most of his gear and was nearly killed by the planet itself. Genna was filled with dangerous wildlife and hostile terrain, and the Kalisk was only the worst thing living there. Dek eventually crossed paths with Thia, a damaged Weyland-Yutani android whose team had already been wiped out. She offered to help him track the Kalisk, and the two formed an uneasy alliance built more on necessity than trust. They were later joined by a friendly creature named Bud, which at first seemed harmless but later turned out to be far more important than expected.
As Dek and Thia traveled together, the film slowed down enough to show how different they were. Thia talked to Dek about wolves on Earth and told him that the alpha protected the pack. Dek misunderstood the point at first and assumed leadership simply belonged to the one who killed the most. At the same time, Weyland-Yutani recovered Thia's "sister" Tessa, repaired her, and sent her back into the field with a team of synthetics. Their mission was not to help Dek or Thia survive. They wanted the Kalisk for themselves because its regenerative abilities could have had enormous value for the Company.
Dek eventually confronted the Kalisk alone with almost nothing left except his blade. He managed to wound it badly, severing its head and tail, but the creature regenerated and overpowered him. It only spared him after detecting Bud's scent on him. Before Dek could make sense of that, Tessa and the Weyland-Yutani team arrived and froze both Dek and the Kalisk using cryogenic explosives recovered from Kwei's crashed ship.
Tessa congratulated Thia for effectively helping deliver the Kalisk to the Company, but Thia had already started to regret what she had done. When Tessa decided that Thia's emotions made her defective and ordered her shut down, the two androids split completely. Dek escaped, reached Kwei's crashed ship, and finally worked out what Thia had meant about the alpha wolf. Leadership was not about killing the most prey. It was about protecting your own. That realization became the core of his character arc.
After that, Dek stopped acting like a hunter trying to impress his father and started acting like someone willing to defend others. He used Genna's environment to build improvised weapons, reunited with Bud, and discovered that Bud was the Kalisk's child. Instead of just finishing the hunt, Dek decided to rescue both Thia and the Kalisk. He infiltrated the Weyland-Yutani base, killed much of the Company team, freed Thia, and helped set off the final chain of events.
The climax brought Dek, Thia, Tessa, Bud, and the Kalisk into the same fight. Tessa used a power loader mech and Kwei's stolen plasmacaster, giving her a very different kind of threat than the usual human antagonist in a Predator film. The Kalisk was freed and joined the battle, eventually swallowing Tessa whole. Even that did not finish her. She killed the Kalisk from inside its body using cryogenic grenades and plasmacaster fire, then tried to kill Thia. Dek stopped her by stabbing her to death, reclaiming Kwei's weapon, while Bud tore off Tessa's head and spine in one of the film's most obvious Predator-style trophy moments.
The ending returned the story to Yautja Prime. Dek presented Tessa's skull to Njohrr and demanded the cloaking device he believed he had earned. Njohrr still refused to recognize him and ordered his guards to kill him. Dek killed the guards, defeated his father in a duel, cut off his arm, and trapped him with his own equipment. When Njohrr tried to save himself by offering Dek a place in the clan, Dek rejected him. He said he had found his own clan with Thia and Bud. Bud, now older and much larger, killed Njohrr by biting off his head. Just when it seemed Dek had finally claimed his place, a huge Yautja ship appeared over the horizon. Thia asked if it was friendly, and Dek answered with one final surprise: the ship belonged to his mother.
Main Cast And Characters
Predator: Badlands had a relatively focused cast, but the main characters mattered a lot because each one pushed Dek's story in a different direction. The film was built around family conflict, synthetic manipulation, and the idea of what a Predator was supposed to become.
- Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) - A young Yautja outcast and runt who became the film's main protagonist.
- Thia (Elle Fanning) - A damaged Weyland-Yutani synthetic who partnered with Dek and gradually turned against the Company.
- Tessa (Elle Fanning) - Thia's "sister" and a Company synthetic who served as one of the film's main antagonists.
- Njohrr (Reuben de Jong, voice by Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) - Dek and Kwei's father, the leader of their clan, and the one who ordered Dek to be culled.
- Kwei (Mike Homik, voice by Stefan Grube) - Dek's older brother who protected him and sacrificed himself so Dek could reach Genna.
- Bud (Rohinal Narayan) - A creature from Genna who bonded with Dek and turned out to be the child of the Kalisk.
- Smyth (Cameron Brown) - Weyland-Yutani synthetic operative and part of the Company presence on Genna.
- MU/TH/UR (voice of Alison Wright) - The Weyland-Yutani A.I. overseer that directed Tessa and the Company's mission.
Dek
Dek was the first Yautja protagonist in a theatrical Predator film. Njohrr ordered him killed for being a runt, then Dek hunted the Kalisk on Genna with Thia. He survived the hunt. Earlier theatrical Predator films killed the hunter by the end.
Thia And Tessa
Thia and Tessa gave Badlands a strong Weyland-Yutani angle and helped connect the film to the larger Alien mythos. Both were synthetics, but they served very different roles. Thia began the story damaged, isolated, and practical, but gradually became more compassionate and more willing to betray the Company. Tessa represented the opposite side of that equation. She was efficient, mission-focused, and willing to sacrifice anyone if it got the Kalisk back under Company control.
Njohrr and Kwei
Njohrr and Kwei were the two family forces that shaped Dek's story. Njohrr was the leader of Dek's clan and his father, who considered Dek unfit to survive because of his smaller size and ordered Kwei to kill him before the hunt on Genna began. Kwei, Dek's older brother, refused the order and instead helped him escape, fighting Njohrr in the process and losing an arm before being executed. Their opposing actions shaped Dek's arc throughout the film, with Njohrr representing the brutal standards of Yautja hierarchy and Kwei representing loyalty and protection.
The Kalisk
The Kalisk was the apex predator Dek was sent to kill, but it ended up being more than a boss creature at the end of the hunt. It was strong enough that even Njohrr feared it, and its regenerative abilities made it something Weyland-Yutani wanted to weaponize or study. The film used it first as a test of Dek's worth, then later as a victim of the Company's greed. Once Bud was revealed to be the Kalisk's child, the creature stopped feeling like a simple monster and started fitting into the movie's larger theme about family and protection.
Yautja Prime And Predator Lore
Badlands mattered because it brought long-running expanded-universe terms straight into the films. The movie used the names "Yautja" and Yautja Prime, which had existed in comics and novels for years but had not been fully established in the live-action movies. It also spent more time showing Predator culture from the inside. Earlier movies usually defined the Predators through trophies, weapons, and what human characters managed to infer. Badlands was more interested in rank, family, ritual, language, and status.
Predator Language
Another major addition was the use of a more developed Predator language. A consistent written and spoken Yautja language had been created for the film, building on bits and pieces seen across earlier franchise entries. That made Badlands feel less like a gimmick and more like a real look at Predator civilization.
Weyland-Yutani Connection
The Weyland-Yutani material sat at the center of the story. By bringing the Company into a Predator story this directly, the film leaned harder into the shared universe link that had existed around Alien and Predator for years. Thia and Tessa were not throwaway references either. They were central to the story, and the Company's interest in the Kalisk's regenerative powers drove the whole third act. Even as a standalone, it still opened the door wider for later crossover stories.
Weapons And Technology
Badlands still delivered the gear and action expected from a Predator movie, but the setup changed how that material was used. Dek lost most of his equipment early, which meant he could not rely on the usual Yautja technological advantage. Like Dutch Schaefer in the first Predator movie, he had to improvise, learn the terrain, and build his own tools out of what Genna gave him. Most effectively, Dek used the Spray Snake creature as an organic shoulder cannon. Later, Kwei's plasmacaster, the cryogenic grenades, and Tessa's power loader mech all became major pieces of the final battles.
Predator Badlands Timeline
Director Dan Trachtenberg stated that Predator: Badlands took place in the far future. The events occurred after the Alien films, including Alien: Resurrection in 2381. This positioned the movie as the latest known point in the combined Alien and Predator chronology, likely sometime in the 25th century. The ending suggested future conflicts involving Dek's clan and his mother, placing the film at the far end of the Predator timeline.
Behind The Scenes
Predator: Badlands was directed by Dan Trachtenberg, with a screenplay by Patrick Aison from a story by Aison and Trachtenberg. Principal photography was in New Zealand. New Zealand stunt performer Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi wore the practical Dek suit and handled the motion-capture work, while Elle Fanning played both Thia and Tessa. Studio Gillis built the body costume. Weta replaced Dek's face digitally so Schuster-Koloamatangi's expressions could drive the CGI mandibles and eyes.
Schuster-Koloamatangi delivered his dialogue in the film's invented Yautja language, created by Britton Watkins, and spent long stretches of the shoot carrying Fanning on his back as the legless Thia. Jeff Cutter shot the film. Sarah Schachner and Benjamin Wallfisch composed the score.
Prequel Comic
Marvel published the Predator: Badlands prequel comic in November 2025, written by Ethan Sacks and drawn by Elvin Ching, with input from Trachtenberg. The one-shot sent Dek onto a ten-thousand-year-old wreck on a moon of Pelkonen IV while Kwei waited outside. Dek fought a robotic Yautja Killer, dropped the prize Njohrr wanted, and came back empty-handed, which is why his father treated him as weak before the Genna trial.
Release And Reception
Predator: Badlands premiered at the TCL Chinese Theatre on November 3, 2025, and was released in the United States on November 7, 2025. It ran for 107 minutes and became the first mainline Predator movie to receive a PG-13 rating instead of an R rating. That rating sparked some debate among fans, but the film still performed well both critically and commercially. The movie grossed over $184 million worldwide and generally received positive reviews. A lot of the praise focused on how willing it was to take risks with the formula by making the Predator the hero. Critics also responded well to Elle Fanning's dual performance and to the film's creature effects, visual design, and alien worldbuilding.
Predator: Badlands 2
The ending of Predator: Badlands left the door open for Predator: Badlands 2, although 20th Century Studios has not officially announced a direct sequel. Dek, Thia, and Bud survived the film, Njohrr was defeated, and the final reveal of Dek's mother arriving on a massive Yautja ship created an obvious next conflict. Director Dan Trachtenberg has also indicated that he still has more Predator stories he wants to tell, while recent franchise projects have continued to build toward a larger shared future. For now, Badlands 2 remains unconfirmed, but the character arcs, cliffhanger ending, and expanded Yautja mythology make a sequel an obvious next step.
Legacy
Badlands made Dek the first Yautja protagonist in a theatrical film, put Yautja Prime on camera, and put Weyland-Yutani androids Thia and Tessa in a Predator story. The last shot is Dek's mother arriving on a clan ship after Njohrr is dead.
External Sources
Tag Categories: Predator Movies
