Earlier this week, we reported on the next standalone Predator movie, Badlands, landing a theatrical release slot on November 7, 2025 (previously held by Marvel Studios’ Blade). Now, 20th Century Studios boss Steve Asbell has dropped another shocker: There’s a second Predator flick coming out next year, and it’s been made in secret.
The new tidbit comes from The Hollywood Reporter’s juicy chat with the long-time Fox executive, who’s been steadily guiding the studio’s biggest properties into a new era under Disney. The Avatar, Planet of the Apes, Alien, and Predator franchises are now thriving, and it appears the latter is expanding in big ways really fast under the creative vision of Dan Trachtenberg and Patrick Aison, the two names behind 2022’s Prey. The piece also includes information on Alien and even Alien vs. Predator‘s potential future.
The conversation actually took place before the Badlands theatrical release news, so Asbell teased that as well as the larger plans for the IP after Prey: “After Prey became a success, Dan [Trachtenberg] came back and said he didn’t want to do Prey 2. And we’re like, “What do you want to do?” And he rattled off a bunch of ideas that were really crazy but really cool. We’ve actually done two of them. Two are coming out next year. One I can’t talk about yet, but the other one is the live-action Predator film with Elle Fanning that just wrapped in New Zealand. That’ll be out theatrically sometime next year.”
Beyond the shocking reveal that another Predator movie has been made in secret (it’s unclear whether it’s live-action or animated) and could be hitting streaming instead of cinemas, there might be something significant to Asbell’s brief comment about Prey 2, which reportedly was in development earlier this year. What if Prey 2 was never on the table (despite that end credits tease) and the trades got that wrong? What if this “secret” Predator movie was the second one we knew was in development all along?
Chances are we’ll be learning more about both movies in the coming months. In fact, Asbell also teased the “secret Predator movie” will actually arrive before Badlands, so an official announcement shouldn’t be too far off. Trachtenberg later acknowledged the news via social media. Badlands is confirmed to be set in the near future, but the second movie’s time period is anyone’s guess. What would you like to see?
