Prey was among the most high-profile curveball releases of the year back in 2022, not only bringing the Predator franchise back to heights it arguably hasn’t seen since its inaugural entry, but also making history as the first feature film to offer a Comanche language dub. Indeed, this was one film that all but a few (“a few” meaning exactly who you think) seemed to be cheering for.
And spearheading the film was one Amber Midthunder, who put on an absolute head-turner of a performance as protagonist Naru, a young Comanche woman who takes it upon herself to fight and defeat a member of the Yautja alien race as she tries to both survive and prove herself as a hunter to the rest of her tribe.
It was certainly a shakeup from what we’re used to, especially given the early 18th century setting and subsequent weaponry available to Naru and company, and we can only imagine what other stories might take place in Naru’s era of Predator history. According to Midthunder herself, however, such tales wouldn’t even necessarily rely on the Yautja. In an interview with Collider, the actor mused on the possibilities for where Naru could go next, and curiously suggested a world where her next adversaries are a bit more terrestrial than what we saw in Prey.
I think it’s a hope for the best, prepare for the worst kind of a situation. I think that it feels as though they’re not gonna come back, but there are ultimately obviously all kinds of threats out there that are unforeseen. Even like the French fur trappers in that interaction and stuff like that, those are all discoveries of things that are out there that they had no idea about. So I think that it’s not necessarily preparing for more predators or whatever; I think it’s just there [are] unforeseen threats and we gotta be ready.
While a Predator movie without the Predator may not sound ideal on its own, Naru’s still-untapped potential as a protagonist begs for more escapades, and for a film as thematically rich as Prey, we’d love to see how far a potential sequel could keep exploring this corner of the Predator universe, Yautja or not.
Prey is available to stream on Hulu, and on Disney Plus in international territories.