Hulu Unleashes Pulse-Pounding Trailer For 'PREY', The 'Predator' Prequel That Just Might Revive A Floundering Franchise
I know the last film in this series was a flop, but watch this trailer and tell me you aren't excited for Prey to drop on August 5, exclusively on Hulu.
Here's the official synopsis from said trailer's YouTube description:
"Set in the Comanche Nation 300 years ago, 'Prey' is the story of a young woman, Naru, 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. 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."
It's cool that Hulu decided to take a swing here with a struggling preexisting IP and pick up the exclusive rights to the project, but it kind of sucks that it won't see a theatrical release. This seems like one of those intense, protagonist-POV action thrillers that'd be so well-suited for the big-screen experience. Those Great Plains landscapes, too. Damn. I suppose the problematic mess that was 2018's The Predator had at least some influence on this one going direct to streaming.
Prey is directed by Dan Trachtenberg, who helmed 10 Cloverfield Lane and has a couple TV credits that seem to translate extremely well to this feature: An episode of the imaginative sci-fi anthology Black Mirror, and an episode of Amazon Prime Video's dark superhero comedy The Boys. I mean damn that's a hell of a resume right there to be at the controls of the latest entry in the Predator franchise.
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Even the tagline is an instant classic: "They hunt to live. It lives to hunt." I feel like that, alone with the one-word title, doesn't bode well at all for the heroes we'll be following as they try to use their limited resources and take down one of the most iconic movie monsters in pop culture.
In an interview with Collider, Trachtenberg explained how the time period informed the shape of Prey's story, some of which is clear to see in the trailer:
"It was very tricky to find a way to have the Predator feel, at once, 300 years earlier in iteration and in what it has to wield, but also feel still feel far more advanced than what our characters are used to and have ever dealt with before. That way, it really can feel like this David and Goliath grudge match unfolding."
Trachtenberg and writer Patrick Aison are delivering a wildly different take, which the Predator series needed in the most desperate way. According to Trachtenberg from that same interview, Aison has penned some other unproduced works, one about Nazi hunters in the 1970s, and another that's essentially Groundhog Day on a space station. SHEESH.
Based on all this information, I gotta say I'm really excited for Prey. Lead actor Amber Midthunder, who's also a member of the Fort Peck Sioux Tribe, looks like an absolute badass.
I was fascinated to see what OG Predator actor/writer-director Shane Black would bring to the fold in 2018 — especially after how good his preceding film was (The Nice Guys) — only for The Predator to turn into a disaster. The difference here is, Prey feels more contained, assured of itself in terms of tone and style, and doesn't appear to be relying on some sort of convoluted plot or the typical disaster movie fare that this very well could've devolved into with a more straightforward pitch.
Come on. You know how this is going to end.