Dan Trachtenberg Confirms That His Third ‘Predator’ Movie Will Bring Back a Beloved Character

The Predator franchise is heading in a new and exciting direction, and it looks like Naru is coming back for more. After the surprise success of Prey in 2022, director Dan Trachtenberg has confirmed that his next Predator movie will continue the story of Naru, the brave Comanche warrior played by Amber Midthunder.

This will be a big change for the series, since no main character has ever returned in a Predator sequel before.

In an interview with Fangoria, Trachtenberg said he always had more plans for Naru’s story after finishing Prey. “I had a bunch of big ideas when I finished Prey. I would love to get to all of them. There’s definitely a plan in mind, but the movie has to do well. So, we’ll see.” He also added something big: “The third story, which I can’t speak to yet, is what would happen with Naru.”

Prey was set in 1719 and followed Naru, a young woman who wanted to prove she could be a hunter. She ends up facing a terrifying Predator, called Mupitsi in Comanche stories, and survives by outsmarting it.

The movie mixed action, history, and sci-fi in a way that felt fresh, and Midthunder’s performance was a big part of why it worked. The animated credits even showed Predator ships coming down on her tribe, hinting there was more to come.

And it turns out there was. Naru recently showed up in an unexpected place: the end of Predator: Killer of Killers, an animated film now on Hulu and Disney+. That movie is made up of short stories where different warriors fight Yautja (the name for Predators) in different time periods—like Viking times, feudal Japan, and World War II.

At the end, viewers were surprised to see Naru frozen inside a cryo pod on a Yautja planet. She had been captured after killing the Predator in Prey.

Trachtenberg explained: “They are not time traveling. That is the benefit of the cryo pod—they are plucked from their time period and then put into stasis and then unleashed when decided upon for that evening’s delightful entertainment.” Basically, the Predators are collecting humans who’ve killed them and saving them for later fights.

This twist adds a whole new meaning to the ending of Prey, and it also connects the films in a way the series hasn’t done before. Trachtenberg said, “The fun is that now we have the end of Prey set up something, and then there’s this, and I love the slow play of it all.” That “slow play” hints that Naru’s story is part of something much bigger that Trachtenberg is building.

But before we get to that next chapter, there’s another movie coming first. It’s called Predator: Badlands, and it’s scheduled to come out on November 7, 2025. This one takes place far in the future and stars Elle Fanning as Thia, a Weyland-Yutani android, and Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi as Dek, a disgraced Predator.

The movie will be a survival story, and this time, the Predator is one of the main characters. Naru won’t appear in Badlands, but Trachtenberg has said that whether or not his next Naru film happens depends on how well Badlands does.

Fans are already talking about what a Prey sequel could look like. Now that Naru is in a cryo pod on a Predator planet, anything could happen. She might end up leading a group of warriors from different time periods.

She might even fight on the Predator homeworld. Some fans even wonder if older characters, like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Dutch from the original Predator, could return this way. Trachtenberg told Polygon that the cryo storage area is like a warehouse full of champions from across time and space, kind of like Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Amber Midthunder has been open about her hopes to return. In an interview with ScreenRant, she said, “I don’t know. I don’t know what’s happening. I genuinely don’t. I also want to do another one. I would be happy to do another one. I love Dan Trachtenberg with my whole heart. I love that world, I love that character, and I think that there’s some fun ideas out there that I’ve heard that are very cool.” She also said, “I’m ready. I loved that experience. I love that movie. And I would be happy to, you know, see where else we can take it.”

For now, Naru’s future depends on how well Badlands performs, but it’s clear that Trachtenberg wants to bring her back. He’s been working hard, even managing the animated Killer of Killers while filming Badlands in New Zealand.

His goal is to slowly build a new, more connected Predator universe. He said he wanted to get back to the original idea of humans facing off against a more powerful enemy using only their brains and courage.

Right now, there’s no official greenlight for a Prey sequel, but with so much set up already, and fans loving the idea, it might just be a matter of time. As Trachtenberg keeps building his vision, one thing is clear: Naru’s story isn’t over yet.

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