‘Predator: Badlands’ Director Dan Trachtenberg Talks Careful “Element” Crossover With ‘Alien’ Universe, Producer Still Open To Idea Of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Return

We’ve known for ages that Dan Trachtenberg‘s “Predator: Badlands” would finally bring the worlds of “Predator” and “Alien” to a futuristic off-world setting (the first time, we’re getting this in a theatrical setting) as Elle Fanning‘s Thia is an android built by Weyland-Yutani and brings the company into the fold as well.

The director recently spoke with Deadline about how they made sure not to go overboard with the crossover and not come off like a giant action figure playtime smash-up experience for audiences, as it comes off as if they did it for the right reasons and not specifically for a bigger plan to bring Xenomorphs into the fray.

“I think, sometimes there’s a tendency for a ‘versus’ movie to be grabbing all the action figures and smashing them together, and I thought it was really cool to just take an element from one franchise and fuse it with this one. So yeah, they’re a huge part of the movie,” Trachtenberg said of how they look at their film compared to other cinematic crossovers (the MCU has been increasingly tagged for schlockly insertion of various comic characters via The Multiverse as marketing gimmicks, more than great narrative reasons) and potentially alluding to the two messy “AVP” movies made in the 2000s (ultimately, they ended up nothing like the source material).

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Producer Ben Rosenblatt also talked about the organic way that Weyland-Yutani and synths got added to the new installment, “So instead, [Trachtenberg] was like, ‘I would love to have humanoid characters without having humans,’ and he was like, ‘I think we need robots.’ And then, of course, Dan was like, ‘I know who makes robots: Weyland-Yutani.’ And then it was a natural collision of the two worlds.”

Sadly, while they’re still open to the IDEA of Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s return as his role of Dutch (after a cameo in the animated streaming movie “Predator: Killer of Killers” and minor talks to find a way to get him in “Badlands”), the special forces leader that was suckered into a fake rescue mission that put the lives of his men at risk as they were hunted down one by one by the original Predator baddie. It doesn’t sound like any real deal or actual contract talks are happening (we still don’t know if audiences will show up for a follow-up to move into development).

“Obviously, the holy grail of Predator movies would be getting Arnold back in there,” Rosenblatt told the outlet of the potential character resurrection for the live-action side of things. “And it’s always been something in the back of our minds that it would be really great to see him come back to this franchise that he’s made iconic, and that’s made him iconic…So, he’s been really wonderful. Arnold and Dan have met a couple of times now. He’s been really interested in what we’re doing; he’s a real fan of what we’ve done so far, from what I understand. And we’re really excited. After ‘Predator: Badlands’ comes out, we’ll see and have more conversations. Hopefully, we’ll have a chance to do something with Arnold, because that would be awesome.”

The problem here with any early chatter about Dutch’s grand return is that we’ve been hearing about Arnold’s return since he nearly came back for the 1990 sequel, but ultimately walked away, and the role was recast/reworked for Gary Busey. There were also attempts to get him to take smaller roles/cameos in “Predators” and “The Predator,” only for those teases not to come together. Despite the talk of a potential big return, we should proceed here with caution, as we’ve gone down this road a lot over the last 35 years and have one animated cameo to show from it. This also echoes previous sentiments made about Dutch’s return by Trachtenberg.

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Then again, Disney/20th Century Studios, according to Sigourney Weaver, had been speaking with her about the recent iteration of the “Alien 5” script penned by longtime franchise screenwriters/producers Walter Hill and the late David Giler (teased to involve Ellen Ripley being locked away from the world). So, there might be some wiggle-room for Dutch to make his big comeback in live-action, but nothing sounds like a concrete deal, given that “Predator: Badlands” is set in the future (but they haven’t stated a year officially in press releases, but we imagine further enough in the future that Dutch may be long dead) could make that a little more difficult to connect to Dutch’s timeline in the franchise (unless he’s used Yautja technology to extend his life, another way to bring Amber Midthunder‘s Naru from “Prey” into the future as well).

With that all said, “Predator: Badlands” is in theaters on November 7, and you can read The Playlist’s review of the film right here.

Dan Trachtenberg teases the ‘Alien’ crossover within #PredatorBadlands pic.twitter.com/gZmtUwfyKe

— Deadline (@DEADLINE) November 4, 2025