Prey (Now Streaming @ Hulu)

The next installment of 20th Century’s Predator franchise has been unveiled as Prey. The film is a prequel taking place 300 years in the past in the Comanche Nation. It follows Naru, a skilled warrior who fiercely protects her tribe as an alien Predator hunts them. Amber Midthunder stars as Naru in the film.

Dan Trachtenberg, director of 10 Cloverfield Lane, became attached to the project a year ago, and it is expected to hit Hulu  in the U.S. next summer. Internationally, it will be available on Disney+ (under the Star tile).

Prey is the fifth installment in the Predator franchise, which began with the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger film. The series centers on an advanced alien race called Predators which seek out the best prey in the galaxy. In addition to Predator 2 (1990), Predators (2010) and The Predator (2018), the series has launched a media franchise spanning comics as well as the Alien vs. Predator films, which sees the property cross over with the alien monster in Ridley Scott’s Alien.

The previous installment, 2018’s The Predator, was a box office and critical disappointment. The news of Prey‘s premise and title was released as part of Disney+ Day, which included a look at the Disney-controlled Hulu’s upcoming slate.

joey con carne wrote:Noice. It will be nice to see a movie where the humans fighting back do not have access to firearms. I wonder if the predator weapons will have any "devolvement", too. I know it appears they already mastered intergalactic travel but it would be interesting to see if the predator's weapons have changed from 300 years ago.

Prey turns out to be a scary-ass, extraterrestrial predator, as teased by a first look at Hulu’s Predator franchise prequel movie due out this summer.

Hitting Hulu on Friday, Aug. 5 and set in the Comanche Nation 300 years ago (specifically, the year 1719), Hulu’s Prey is the story of a young woman, Naru (played by Roswell, New Mexico‘s Amber Midthunder), a fierce and highly skilled warrior. She has been raised in the shadow of some of the most legendary hunters who roam the Great Plains, so when danger threatens her camp, she sets out to protect her people.

But the prey she stalks, and ultimately confronts, turns out to be a highly evolved alien predator with a technically advanced arsenal, resulting in a vicious and terrifying showdown between the two adversaries.

Dan Trachtenberg (10 Cloverfield Lane) directed the 20th Century Studios flick, while the cast also includes Michelle Thrush (Blackstone), Julian Black Antelope (Tribal) and newcomers Dakota Beavers and Stormee Kipp.

joey con carne wrote:Google says Amber Midthunder is a member of the Sioux tribe while Naru is a member of the Comanche.

They couldn't cast a Comanche actor to play Naru? Racists! Boycott!



I like this different take on this series. A technologically advanced species up against another without firearms. I'll check this one out for sure.

WyldeMan wrote:Well Hollywood has still come a long way from when they used to cast Italians as their Natives.....

Regardless, I will be watching Prey on day one!

joey con carne wrote:

WyldeMan wrote:Well Hollywood has still come a long way from when they used to cast Italians as their Natives.....

Regardless, I will be watching Prey on day one!

LOL where can I see that?

I just remember the uproar when Exodus: Gods and Kings came out. That was one movie where I definitely understood the meltdown of the people.

Rusty wrote:Shit. Burt Reynolds played a Navajo Indian in Navajo Joe. It's a Spaghetti Western and the music was by none other than Ennio Morricone. Awesome score. Not so awesome movie. I have it on Blu-Ray.

WyldeMan wrote:
Oh I'm very aware of Navajo Joe. Dustin Hoffman, Elvis Presley and Paul Newman also come to mind as poorly cast Natives. 

As a small youngin I LOVED an obscure western called Windwalker. It wasn't until years later I realized that Trevor Howard was another white Native.

Tombstone and Dances with Wolves were my childhood gateway into the genre so I was much older when I first experienced Spaghetti Westerns and they never really clicked with me.

Regardless, Predators versus Natives is going to be a crazy fuckin game.....

Rusty wrote:This version of Predator seems like interesting take. I'll definitely be checking it out. Finally got around to watching the original again about 2 weeks ago. Still holds up.

Spaghetti Westerns were my first westerns that I remember, which is why I have such affinity for them, regardless of how bad some can be. I had the Terrence Hill & Bud Spencer classics The Call Me Trinity, and Trinity Is Still My Name on VHS. To be honest, the only movies I would have watched at home as much as those two would have been Jackie Chan movies, Bruce Lee movies, and Dazed & Confused.

I highly recommend them, and you can watch them both for free on YouTube. If you're familiar with Tarantino's Django Unchained, the song that plays at the end as the house burns down as he's on his horse, that's the theme song from the first Trinity movie.

UltimateMarvel wrote:I think I underestimated this, it looks awesome!

After two years, San Diego Comic-Con is finally returning this month, and there's a lot of excitement to look forward to. Creators are starting to reveal their plans and major franchises have teased some big announcements. Today, Collider shared that Prey, the latest installment in the Predator franchise, will be having its world premiere at the upcoming con. In addition to screening the prequel, the event will also feature a Q&A with director Dan Trachtenberg who is best known for helming 10 Cloverfield Lane.

The world premiere of Prey will take place on Thursday, July 21st at 8:30 PM in San Diego and the Q&A is also expected to feature Amber Midthunder (Naru), Dakota Beavers (Taabe), Dane DiLiegro (The Predator), and producer Jhane Myers. Collider points out that since Prey is going straight to Hulu, the SDCC screening might be the only chance for fans to see it on the big screen.

Will you be checking out Prey at SDCC? Tell us in the comments! You can find out how to get tickets to the screening here.

Tyger wrote:It was really good, but I could’ve done with less human interactions

joey con carne wrote:Nice! Glad you enjoyed it. Going to definitely find time this week to watch it. I forgot it was releasing this week. I kept thinking it was still July.

WyldeMan wrote:I found Prey to be a far less complicated movie than 2018's The Predator and just like with the original, simpler is better. I didn't feel like there were too many human interactions because they only showed up just to be killed off which is the purpose of side characters and they also added depth to the tribe. I liked the set up with the french poachers and I was looking forward to their comeuppance.

I did however find it strange watching the movie in English because Comanche speaking perfect English in 1719 was a bit much for me so I think the Comanche dub will improve this and I plan to watch it either tonight or tomorrow.

I really loved the inclusion of Raphael Andolini's 1715 stamped flintlock, I'd actually mentioned that I really hoped they would include that Easter Egg in a much earlier post. However, that did still leave me wondering if that was to set up another Predator in the sequel who will recover it since that flintlock was given to Danny Glover's character at the end of Predator 2.

There were some great call back moments to other Predator movies but while the moment with Andolini's flintlock probably felt like a nothing moment to the casual viewer, as a life long Predator fan that was a big moment for me.

Get on it Joey!!!! BTW Hulu also has Predator, Predator 2, Predators, AvP and AvP Requiem available if you want to immerse yourself in the franchise, though it's not necessary.

Tyger wrote:The language is part of why I could’ve done with less interactions. While it’s easier that they speak English, it’s odd. Especially odd when only one person in the French camp speaks any English.

I also feel like the brothers friends subtracted depth more gigabytes anything. Does it make for good comeuppance, sure, but it just felt like dumb teenagers and  that’s too slashery for what I think the movie was trying to be.

Over the Aug. 5-7 weekend, social media was buzzing over the new movie Prey, the umpteenth installment in the Predator franchise. Many wondered why 20th Century and Disney didn’t open the movie in cinemas, considering the theatrical calendar for August is notably light this year. Instead, Prey debuted directly on Hulu.

On Tuesday, Disney said the film scored the No. 1 premiere on Hulu to date, including all film and TV series debuts. Additionally, the pic was the most watched film premiere on Star+ in Latin America and Disney+ under the Star banner in all other territories, based on hours watched in the first three days of its release. Disney did not share total hours viewed, as Netflix does. Since companies don’t report streaming viewership numbers into a central clearinghouse, there’s no third-party verification.

Prey was long destined for streaming, with preproduction underway prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and was not among the movies that changed course once the pandemic struck.

Disney believes that sending the movie straight to Hulu — which, like other streamers, is competing to become a destination for original content — was a smart decision, and it’s impossible to say whether Prey would have benefited from a theatrical release. One veteran box office analyst says 20th Century and Disney likely made the right choice by sending it directly to Hulu, considering that the last film in the series, 2018’s The Predator, was a bust that tarnished the brand. “They might have had a tough row to hoe if going theatrical,” the source says.

The Predator franchise has a checkered box office history. The 1987 original impressed with a domestic gross of nearly $60 million on a $15 million budget, but the most recent installment in the franchise to be released theatrically, The Predator, fell flat with $51 million domestic and $160 worldwide gross after being made for a reported $88 million. The most successful film to feature the Predator was 2004 crossover movie Alien vs. Predator, which earned $177 million worldwide.

Talking to THR in March of this year, 20th Century head Steve Asbell noted that with the exception of two or three theatrical releases a year, 20th Century titles will launch on Hulu domestically and Star+ internationally. It is important to note that 20th Century movies that do receive a theatrical release have an output deal with HBO Max that was engineered before Disney acquired 20th Century Fox.

As for 20th Century’s Hulu slate, Asbell said that genre films that Disney doesn’t make in other divisions — like midbudget sci-fi films of the Predator variety — would be the domain of his studio when it came to straight-to-streaming projects. “In order to meet the volume that we are looking at — which is, by 2023, 10-plus movies just for streaming — it’s going to be a combination of originals in those genres. And coolest of all for fans, we get to find bold takes on beloved Fox properties.”

Set in the 1700s, Prey stars Amber Midthunder as a young Comanche woman that is hoping to prove herself as a hunter when she encounters the homicidal alien at the center of the Predator franchise. Dan Trachtenberg, who had a great showing at the box office with his last feature film, 10 Cloverfield Lane, in 2016, directed from his script.

Fans of the Predator franchise showed a definite affinity for Midthunder and Trachtenberg, according to analytics and polling firm ScreenEngine. Overall, the movie skewed male, as has been common for the past Predator films. (ScreenEngine doesn’t reveal viewership numbers.)

Asbell said in his previous interview, “We get more of these at-bats, and we can make more bets on new talent.” One of those bets was Prey, which was an original take on a well-known IP but featured a largely unknown cast.

Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Chapek has repeatedly stressed the importance of being flexible when it comes to making and distributing content across different platforms. That policy won’t end as the industry emerges from the pandemic.

Other studios are going in the opposite direction as moviegoing resumes. Earlier this month, Warner Bros. Discovery stunned Hollywood when shelving Batgirl, an original HBO Max project, as part of WBD chief David Zaslav’s edict to focus on theatrical.

Source: THR

Prey has become a massive success, achieving the huge record of being the most viewed property on Hulu in the history of the streaming platform. It is also sitting at a 92% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the highest critically acclaimed movie in the Predator franchise. Quite honestly, the movie has opened a whole new way to tell the story of an alien race that hunts the biggest game it can find. Now, through our trusted and proven sources, we can report that a Predator series is in the works for Disney+. This new series will attempt to capture the teen demographic.

To be honest, is it a bit strange that the franchise is going to be targeting the teen demographic, considering that every single Predator property has been R-Rated. It seems like a step back to give everyone the greatness that is Prey, then immediately work on something that is going to go in a reverse way. However, we don’t know the details of the plot, so it could end up connecting to a larger universe that we don’t currently know about. For all we know, there could be some teens in a different time that are experiencing what Naru did in Prey. If Dan Trachtenberg is involved in this Predator series, we will give him our full faith.

The franchise has seemingly been restarted with Trachtenberg’s take on the franchise. Instead of continuing the trend of soldiers fighting a Predator in space or on earth, the timeline went backward to a time when the first specials of Predator touched down on our planet to place itself at the top of the food chain. However, the alien hunter found itself in trouble when coming against the might of the Comanche warriors. We would love to see the franchise continue in this manner. Imagine a Predator vs Samurai or a Predator vs gunslingers in the Wild West. We don’t necessarily see that happening in this new Predator series, but it would be amazing to see. There are some craft teenagers out there, so we could be seeing how a group bands together to take down the threat of a Predator. We just hope it’s not meant to add some sort of comic relief to the franchise.

This new Predator series could continue the horror science fiction style that it has and have these teens fighting and running for their lives. They must do what they must in order to survive. It could end up being quite an emotional series. However, being that it is on Disney+, we are not sure how gory or adult the series can be in targeting the teen demographic.

We are going to hold out hope for this Predator series, especially in that it can capture the same kind of magic that Prey has. Everyone now feels as though the franchise has been restarted the correct way, and a presumably PG-13 series might not be the right course of action following such a great prequel film. Disney+ has been allowing much more adult content on its platform lately, so we can hope that the new series will be a bit more adult.

joey con carne wrote:Finished it tonight. The killshot at the end seemed kind of lame. Can someone explain how the mask activated?

Pretty okay film. Slow burn up until the Predator started killing all of Naru’s buddies.

Fun movie. Would like to see more for sure.

joey con carne wrote:But the predator did not fall into a booby trap. I saw Naru setting up spikes and stuff but that didn't even come into play.

The killshot didn't make sense to me.

I always assumed the laser aiming was controlled either through a neural interface from the mask or the predator used its mandibles to operate controls located in the mask. But still, the mask powering on by itself without touching it made no sense to me.

I'll watch it again. I had to have missed something.

joey con carne wrote:My bad. Didn't mean to try and bring anyone down.

While I will say overall the movie is good, I'm still pissed about the cultural appropriation. I'm going to go on a hunger strike between meals until they issue an apology.

I'm going to hunger strike until dinner where I will be scarfing down some fat burgers. Then hungerstriking until lunch tomorrow because I won't be able to have breakfast. It's going to be a tough morning but I will stand by my principals.

joey con carne wrote:Amber Midthunder (Naru) is a member of the Sioux. They couldn’t hire a Comanche to play a Comanche?? Outraaaage!!

I got some pizza instead of burgers. After i eat my three slices I will begin my hunger strike.

Rusty wrote:

joey con carne wrote:Amber Midthunder (Naru) is a member of the Sioux. They couldn’t hire a Comanche to play a Comanche?? Outraaaage!!

I got some pizza instead of burgers. After i eat my three slices I will begin my hunger strike.

They did however do a Comanche audio language track for it. Initially I was under the impression the film was shot in both Comanche and English (one take each) so they could release both versions, but it turns out they just did a language track to dub over it. Not only does that half suck, apparently when you play the Comanche audio track, the English subtitles are closed captioned so you get silly shit like [*Bear roars] and [*wind noise] popping up on screen.

Prey has become one of the best surprises of 2022. The reboot of the Predator franchise has gone better than most people had hoped. The film is currently the highest-rated film in the series on Rotten Tomatoes, and it became the highest viewed property in Hulu history. The director of the film, Dan Trachtenberg, recently was interviewed about the potential of a sequel. According to Trachtenberg, “We do something very unique in that, whereas other movies may have a post-credits scene, we have some storytelling inside our end credits themselves.” Prey 2 could have its plot within the art that occurs at the end of the film.

For those who have not yet seen Prey, look away, as the rest of this article contains heavy spoilers. What Trachtenberg is referring to is the stick art that occurs at the end of Prey, which shows Naru’s journey up to killing the Predator on the planet. What we are given is a look at the future, with Naru and her tribe seeing multiple ships landing. This could be a bit telling as to where the franchise could go next with Prey 2. Trachtenberg added, “It leaves room for lots of different kinds of sequels to be made. I don’t know if we’re ready yet to say exactly what we want to do next, but I think there are lots of cool opportunities.” This is certainly true, as seeing Naru and the Comanche take on the Preadtor could mean that more of the alien species will begin to show up throughout history. That is how we feel a future film should or could work out.

Another interesting idea of Prey 2 is to show the Predator race showing up in other historical periods. Imagine a host of Samurai having to take on the vicious alien hunters. Also, with Naru and the Comanche living in a time that began to show colonizers, we might be seeing the turn of the century, when more sophisticated weaponry is brought into the fold. The times of Native Americans clashing with cowboys of the Wild West would be an interesting dynamic to think about in terms of a sequel. As Trachtenberg stated, there are many ways in which the sequel film or further spinoff films could explore the historical significance of Predators landing on Earth.

What’s most important is how well-received the film has become. We were given the first-ever full Comanche language version of a film, which added an extra layer of authenticity to watching Prey. That extra effort has clearly worked out well, as droves of fans have watched both versions of the film. It was an interesting experiment to want to truly give fans a look at Comanche tribes that existed in history, and this fictional race of aliens. It was the perfect blend of historical fiction. Prey 2 might be more of the same, but we wouldn’t mind if the hunters of the cosmos appeared at some other point in history. We have seen them appear in the future, and in space, but Prey allowed them to exist in a time where warriors used much less sophisticated weapons.

Prey 2 might not be happening soon, but it sounds like Trachtenberg is ready to start discussing the plans for a follow-up feature. For as popular as the first film is, it’s obvious that discussions about a sequel are set to happen soon. We are fully on board with whatever direction the reboot franchise is going to take if it stays as fantastic as Prey was.