Disney didn’t seem like the obvious candidate to reboot and reinvigorate a 35 year-old franchise that combined sci-fi and horror to inconsistent effect across a string of failed sequels, crossovers, and reinventions, at least until Prey came along and turned out to be the movie fans of the saga had been waiting on for what felt like forever.
Taking the story hundreds of years into the past to untether itself from decades of confusing canon, director Dan Trachtenberg delivered the best-reviewed entry in the entire cosmic saga by far, and even landed six Primetime Emmy nominations as a result of the film’s Hulu exclusivity.
Eyebrows were raised at first when the Mouse House threw its weight behind Predator as a brand, but as Trachtenberg explained to Vanity Fair, it makes sense when he viewed the adventures of Amber Midthunder’s Naru as a Disney princess movie, albeit with a blood-splattered twist.
“Honestly, the biggest help was the script being so focused. I’ve worked on big time travel movies and heist films, and those things can be so complicated. And this movie was so elemental at its core that even before Fox-Disney merger happened, I kept on saying it’s like an R-rated Disney princess film. It’s like a Pixar movie. Movies about dreamers and underdogs.
For little girls, for older girls, for First Nations, any Indigenous person, for people from any walk of life that feel like they are capable of more than they’re aware of— it has all sorts of positivity. So to be able to be like, yes, we can do good things and also deliver insane Predator killing, and be a fun time, it gets people motivated to want to pull it off.”
If ever there was a time to push for a new princess to be officially welcomed into the club, then candidates don’t come much stronger than the warrior who single-handedly took down a ferocious alien in an acclaimed and award-nominated epic backed by Disney branding.
