In the wake of two Predator movies that went straight to streaming – Prey and the animated Predator: Killer of Killers – director Dan Trachtenberg finally gets the chance to showcase his take on the franchise on the big screen, with Predator: Badlands now playing in theaters. Predator: Badlands opened in the #1 spot on […]
In the wake of two Predator movies that went straight to streaming – Prey and the animated Predator: Killer of Killers – director Dan Trachtenberg finally gets the chance to showcase his take on the franchise on the big screen, with Predator: Badlands now playing in theaters.
Predator: Badlands opened in the #1 spot on the domestic box office chart in its debut weekend, the action-packed horror adventure film making $40 million at the U.S. box office in its first weekend. Worldwide, Trachtenberg’s Predator: Badlands debuted to $80 million.
That gives Predator: Badlands the highest opening weekend in the entire history of the Predator franchise, with Badlands even topping the opening weekend (unadjusted for inflation) of the crossover event film Alien vs. Predator, which released way back in 2004.
The catch? Badlands also has the highest production budget in the Predator franchise’s history, armed with a reported $105 million price tag. It’ll need to have legs in the coming weeks before it’s officially profitable at the box office, but $80 million is a better-than-expected start.
Helping matters is that Predator: Badlands is the first movie in the solo Predator franchise to be rated PG-13, which opens the film up to a wider audience. It also has the highest CinemaScore in franchise history, with audiences giving the film an A- score over the weekend. On Rotten Tomatoes, Badlands is 85% Fresh with critics and 95% Fresh with audiences.
Meagan Navarro writes in her review for Bloody Disgusting, “Predator: Badlands takes a sharp detour into adventure, with its propulsive, creature-filled action matching the polarizing thrills of Yautja innovation.” Meagan’s 3.5 Skull review for BD continues, “Dan Trachtenberg boldly keeps pushing these films into new territory, yet never forgets the past.”
