James Cameron Called Predator: Badlands a Dumpster Fire Before It Dropped—Here’s Why He Was Dead Wrong (Or Was He?)
Added on November 5, 2025 inEntertainment News Cards, Movie News Cards
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Is it just me, or does the universe have a wicked sense of timing? Here we are, with the stars possibly aligning for bold new frontiers in both film and, well, the cosmos—because what else could explain the near-mystical collaboration between Dan Trachtenberg, the director of the fresh-from-the-oven Predator: Badlands, and none other than James Cameron, the mastermind behind Avatar? Shot in the land of the long white cloud, New Zealand, Badlands became a bit more than your average sci-fi flick, thanks to a surprise invite from Cameron himself. Imagine getting a peek at Avatar: Fire and Ash while pitching your own ambitious, genre-bending project—talk about cosmic crossover! Trachtenberg copped to feeling like he got “wind in his sails” from Cameron’s hesitant-but-ultimately-devoted thumbs-up, which must have felt like a meteor strike of confidence. But does the astrology of creativity favor the bold, or is it just luck riding shotgun with grit? Either way, this celestial teamwork has landed a PG-13-rated Predator tale on the map—eerily charming enough for younger fans but stirring some debate about franchise identity. Hungry for the juicy backstory to all this galaxy-spanning goodness? LEARN MORE
Predator: Badlands director Dan Trachtenberg included a special thank you to James Cameron in the credits, but just how was the Avatar director involved? The new Predator sequel was shot in New Zealand, and Trachtenberg told THR he received an invitation from Cameron to visit for the day. Can’t really turn that offer down.
“I consider myself incredibly blessed, and it’s probably largely thanks to both of us making movies with the same collaborators at 20th Century. He saw Prey and loved it, and so we had been in touch,” Trachtenberg said. “And when I went down to New Zealand to start prepping Badlands, he invited me over to see what he was doing down in Wellington. So I spent some time on the stage with him and in the edit bay [of Avatar: Fire and Ash]. In the edit bay, I told him the crazy thing that we were doing, and the crazy way we were doing it, and how it would be very new and new to the franchise and new to me as a filmmaker.“
He continued, “Then we drove separately to dinner, and when he came in and sat down, he said, ‘I was just thinking about what you’re doing, and I think it’s going to work.’ So all that wind in my sails carried me back up to Auckland to tell my crew. The blessing of that guy — who has taken on some pretty impossible odds and pulled them off — was absolutely incredible.“
Getting the thumbs up from the director behind the biggest movies of all-time was a hell of a boost, but Cameron later confessed he wasn’t really sure Trachtenberg would pull it off. “[Cameron] saw the movie a couple months back, and he said, ‘I have to be honest with you. When I first heard what you were doing, I did not think it was going to work. But holy crap, you pulled it off,’” Trachtenberg said. “He either did not remember that first conversation that meant a whole lot to me, or he really does know what someone in my position needs to hear to get things done. I think it’s more the latter. So he put wind in our sails at just the right times, and I had to make sure we gave him a special thanks.“
Predator: Badlands is set in the future on a remote planet, where a young Predator named Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi), outcast from his clan, finds an unlikely ally in Thia (Elle Fanning) and embarks on a treacherous journey in search of the ultimate adversary.
The film has been receiving largely positive reviews, and our own Chris Bumbray had a lot of fun with it. However, he did add that the PG-13 rating makes it feel a little out of place compared to the older Predator movies. “As for the PG-13 rating — as much as critics who are all aboard with the new direction will say it ‘feels’ like an R-rated movie because there’s lots of alien gore, I beg to differ,” he wrote. “This was clearly conceived as a movie for a younger audience, with them even giving Dek and Thia a cute sidekick animal they name Bud to tag along. It’s certainly a well-done PG-13, but it’s definitely not a movie targeted at the older Predator audience (unlike Prey, which was still pretty gnarly).” You can check out the rest of his review right here.
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