Predator Badlands: An Interview with Dan Trachtenberg

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Speaker 2 All right. Hi.
Hello, everybody. Thank you for coming on and listening to us.
Yes, it's last podcast in a left interview series, Ham Style.

Speaker 2 I am Ed Larson, your hambassador, and joining me today is the visionary, director, storyteller, writer, all kinds of amazing stuff. I can't wait to talk to this guy.

Speaker 2 I'm going to stop blabbering so he can get in in here. Everyone, welcome, Dan Trachtenberg.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 All right. All right.
Yeah. All right.
I'm on in. Big time.
What's going on, Dan? How you doing? I'm good. I'm stoked to be here.
Hell yeah. You feeling good after this Badlands?

Speaker 2 I'm feeling good. Yeah.
We made a really crazy movie and

Speaker 2 people ended up liking it,

Speaker 2 which is a big sigh of relief.

Speaker 2 I bet, man. I bet.
Because, you know, everyone loves the Predator franchise, and you have just like taken it? Is it your, do you, but does it belong to you now? Like, are you Jon Favreau of Predator?

Speaker 2 Is that what's happened? I've made three very unique, very different movies inside the franchise, and

Speaker 2 we'll see. We'll see what happens next.
I'll say, I'll say they're very, you call it very unique, but I feel like they all like involve teamwork.

Speaker 2 Like, I feel like they're all like like it's like it's like if you the only way to win whether you know you're on no matter what side you're on is is teamwork and uh and so i i've noticed that's a common theme uh for you is that something were you a team player did you play sports like where does this come from i didn't play sports i i'm i'm funny i i i love sports movies I love underdog stories.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 Killer of Killers and

Speaker 2 Badlands certainly do involve found families and

Speaker 2 the notion of being stronger together.

Speaker 2 But the underdog story

Speaker 2 is certainly a through line in all three of the movies. And

Speaker 2 yeah, I just find it to be

Speaker 2 something

Speaker 2 an emotional

Speaker 2 fulcrum for the Predator series,

Speaker 2 where the main character of the franchise, the antagonist in every film besides Prey, is looking for the most worthy,

Speaker 2 hunting something

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 is deemed the alpha. And so

Speaker 2 that's a wonderful counterpoint to a story where characters are trying already to prove themselves as worthy to their clan, family, or even

Speaker 2 to themselves. It's interesting because, and Prey, like, it's like he was looking for what was worthy, but he had to fight

Speaker 2 Naru. Like, I think that was, like, the coolest thing ever.
Like, it's like, it wasn't even about his fight anymore. It's about her fight.
Well,

Speaker 2 the whole movie, he doesn't see her as a threat the entire time. She keeps saying, I'm, I'm a badass.
And he keeps saying, I don't even see you as that, you know?

Speaker 2 And it's not really until the end that she does

Speaker 2 become a threat that in the final moments he sees her as worthy and that and then it's too late. Man, so

Speaker 2 I got to ask,

Speaker 2 we're going to get into it in a little bit. I want to like ask you a bunch of like predator yakja

Speaker 2 lore, you know, like I, because I feel like you know better than anyone right now.

Speaker 2 And I don't know, was there like like a like a Cimarillion that you had to like work off of or you get to kind of like, you know, make it up as you go?

Speaker 2 No, the truth of the matter is I don't know more than anyone. There are people that know

Speaker 2 the lore from ancillary material far more than I do. And

Speaker 2 I know a certain amount,

Speaker 2 that's for sure. But

Speaker 2 the funny thing about this franchise

Speaker 2 is there's no Gene Roddenberry. There's no George Lucas.

Speaker 2 And the movies were all very episodic and lean and mean.

Speaker 2 So the background of the yaucha species, the predator species, was really explored in comics and novels.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 when I signed on to do the first movie, when I signed on to do Prey, I was like, all right, give me the goods. Show me the Bible.
Let me know what's up. Like, I'm ready to give me the list of weapons.

Speaker 2 And it did not exist.

Speaker 2 The studio did not have anything of that nature. It wasn't until I linked up with Alec Gillis

Speaker 2 and Tom Woodward at the time, ADI. They had, they, they, they worked with um Stan Winston on the first 87 movie and had been with the franchise for most of its run.

Speaker 2 And Alien as well. They've worked on several alien movies.
So, so Alec

Speaker 2 was, is the closest proximity to like what's in the films, having some sort of a Bible and, um, and put together a whole packet of weapons and armor

Speaker 2 and designs,

Speaker 2 species designs that were explored, either used in their films or almost used and abandoned or whatever.

Speaker 2 So I could just see everything was out there and really discern what the design language truly is for the franchise.

Speaker 2 But from there, I am using my own narrative instincts, just like the people who wrote the comics and the novels did to create the the canon that people that all of us fans and the internet then devour.

Speaker 2 So I'm kind of half running on the lore that has existed and kind of taking what I find to be

Speaker 2 the most compelling and the most narratively rich and then forming my own sort of canon with the movies as I'm putting forth. Now, your last three movies, I mean, to me, best three since the original.

Speaker 2 And do you take the other Predator movies like The Predator and Predators? Does that exist in your world?

Speaker 2 They do. I mean, I've certainly taken elements.
I think every Predator movie has had awesome sequences, awesome bits in them. I don't know that I've loved every single movie holistically, but

Speaker 2 the aesthetic of our

Speaker 2 cloaking device

Speaker 2 that started with Prey for me and was in the animated film and Badland, Killer Killers, and Badlands. That came more from

Speaker 2 the 2018 Predator than any other installment of the franchise.

Speaker 2 And even the notion of the cloaking device being

Speaker 2 something inside the gauntlet, a little ball

Speaker 2 key fob that goes in the gauntlet that's revealed at the end

Speaker 2 of Badlands, that that that came from the the 2018 as well. Okay.

Speaker 2 And a lot of our weapons are,

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 2 we call the net ball came from the net gun that was in Predator 2 and

Speaker 2 the AVP and

Speaker 2 the combie stick that seems so synonymous with the franchise isn't in the first movie.

Speaker 2 So yeah, I've kind of taken elements from all of them. So they're all canon then, we would assume.

Speaker 2 I guess you don't get to make that decision. I don't make a decision.

Speaker 2 Anything, as soon as a movie

Speaker 2 has something

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 references narratively something from another film, then I think it's canonized. Then at least those are canonized, you know, until someone changes it later.

Speaker 2 You know, it's like whatever the movies say means that that's true. When did the name Yakja appear?

Speaker 2 Because I didn't, right, I never heard it before your movies, but then, you know, I probably just missed it, you know, because I've only seen the movie

Speaker 2 in the movies. Oh, it's never been in the movies.
Never been in the movies.

Speaker 2 It was in a, I believe it was an AVP

Speaker 2 novel

Speaker 2 that indeed the term Yacha that I think is meant to be pronounced Yaucha. Yaucha.
But Yaocha just had a little bit more of a ring to it. It's like Jif and GIF.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 No one likes those GIF people. You you know it's

Speaker 2 okay at this point i can't remember how i first in terms of gif and gif i feel like i always thought it was gif and then i was horrified when i when i learned that it was gif and now i can't even remember which one was the first that i you know learned i just look at it as something that makes me dumber the um

Speaker 2 Love it.

Speaker 2 So, so Yacha,

Speaker 2 I heard, now you tell me if I'm wrong, because I heard all kinds of things, and everyone here likes to think that they're the smartest person and knows everything.

Speaker 2 I heard you wanted to call the most recent movie Yacht Jaw.

Speaker 2 And then they were like, you're an idiot. Don't do that.
No one knows what that was. My friends were like that.
My friends, we were playing a game.

Speaker 2 I had kind of like a weekend with

Speaker 2 my friends at.

Speaker 2 at Palm Springs and we were playing a like password style game and I put in the thing yaucha yaucha um and nobody knew what the heck the word was and everyone was making fun of it and I was like I think I'm just gonna call my next movie that

Speaker 2 and they were like don't do that

Speaker 2 but I yeah I wanted to call you know I thought the movie would teach us the movie would make it a cool thing

Speaker 2 and it just didn't didn't get to stay around well i think you have officially made it a thing man because it's i'm i'm in you know i always wanted i'm sick i hate that we call it predator I hate that we call it alien I know it's a Xenomorph you know but like if there ever is another alien versus predator movie I hope it's Xeno versus Xenomorph versus Yakja you know I think that'd be a better thing also I got to say it gripe it's got nothing to do with you but the alien versus predator movies like

Speaker 2 We don't need humans in this in this movie.

Speaker 2 To me, the humans ruin the whole thing. There shouldn't have been one word of English in that whole movie.
It should have just been clicks and screams. you know?

Speaker 2 Well, that's certainly an inception point for Batlands because that was the fear. If I put any humans in the movie, it then would be what AVP is.
It would just be humans

Speaker 2 and a Yaucha teaming up as opposed to, no, no, no, the protagon, the main character is the Yaucha. Yeah, but there's still like the sense of humans, you know, there's still like the company.

Speaker 2 I know it's a robot, you know, and like and stuff like that, you know, but there still is like the stench of humans.

Speaker 2 Would you ever want to make one without with like just like nothing, just Yacht Jaw? I love it. Oh, man.

Speaker 2 I love Kenny Tardikovsky's Primal, you know, that was also a big inspiration. And

Speaker 2 I love that kind of storytelling that is just very

Speaker 2 visceral and visual. Does their planet have a name?

Speaker 2 It's referred to as Yaocha Prime, which we put in the movie.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 But yeah, Yaocha Prime. Yacha Prime.
Do they have like a government? Like, you know, like, what, like, they're obviously very technologically advanced. Yeah.

Speaker 2 You know, like, like, it's like, there's got to be like Yakja nerds. You know, who's making all this shit? I see that.
So there's two interesting answers to that.

Speaker 2 One, I see them as very nomadic and very tribal. Um, I would think of them a little bit more like the Dothraki in Game of Thrones, barbarians.
Um,

Speaker 2 and uh, so as much as those have government or the wildlings, you know,

Speaker 2 I don't know that they're in,

Speaker 2 I don't know, they're voting with

Speaker 2 constitutions and all those things. It may be something that feels a little bit more ancient.
But

Speaker 2 in the lore, in the comics, I have,

Speaker 2 yeah, I don't, we'll see how much any of this would be included theatrically, though, but I'm very interested in it.

Speaker 2 That it is the origin of the species is they were actually enslaved

Speaker 2 by a more intelligent race called the Amengi.

Speaker 2 And then there was a big overthrow, and they stole all the technology of the Amengi, and that's how they got all of their stuff.

Speaker 2 And in Badlands, in the beginning,

Speaker 2 within the first few shots when we're following

Speaker 2 the hover bike,

Speaker 2 it passes by some broken Amengi statues. So,

Speaker 2 oh,

Speaker 2 yeah, very cool, very cool. I love, man, this is all so cool to me.

Speaker 2 Sorry, so you're you're working, you're like you're making all these movies, you're making the Predator movies. Like, all right, Yakja,

Speaker 2 they obviously have to procreate, but do they love?

Speaker 2 I absolutely think any

Speaker 2 creature that is that

Speaker 2 passionate, you know, that is that

Speaker 2 angry,

Speaker 2 I think also

Speaker 2 loves as well. So, yeah, yeah, because we saw a little bit of love.

Speaker 2 I don't want to get too deep into it because I don't want to spoil anything because everyone has to go out and see Badlands in the theater.

Speaker 2 Prey and Killer of Killers were incredible, but I was a little disappointed they weren't in the theater.

Speaker 2 And so go see Predator Badlands in the theater. There is no experience like it.
It's still going to be, you're going to be so happy about it.

Speaker 2 Now, the thing everyone's talking about, is that an ID4

Speaker 2 hunter, harvester skull, or is that a War of the Worlds skull? Or you don't, you're like, yeah, I don't know. It's not the world.
War of the Worlds is not owned by Disney and 20th Century Studios.

Speaker 2 Okay, there we go. Independence Day is.
Independence Day is. All right.
All right. Oh, that's very, okay.
Interesting. Interesting.
I like this. Now,

Speaker 2 are there any other Easter eggs that no one's pointed out yet?

Speaker 2 Because I'm sure you're reading what everyone's bitching on. I think I just dropped a big one with the

Speaker 2 Amengi statues. Yeah.

Speaker 2 That's what I'm talking about. I love a scoop.
I love a scoop. Kugler gave us a scoop.
It really helps out.

Speaker 2 All right. So we're going to.
Alien vs. Predator.
Are we doing more of these? Does it matter? I mean, the company's obviously going on. The alien movies are killing it.

Speaker 2 Romulus was awesome. Alien Earth, people are loving that.

Speaker 2 Are you and Fede Alvarez? Are you guys getting lunch all the time? Do you check in with each other?

Speaker 2 We were getting lunch before we even knew we would ever make our Predator or Alien movie. I've known Fede for a bit.
That's awesome. And

Speaker 2 massive, massive fan of his.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 yeah, so

Speaker 2 we'll just have to see how, you know, where the, where the narrative takes us. I love it because you're such an original storyteller, but you love using

Speaker 2 what seems like other people's stories to tell your stories. And which is, it's like a new concept in the world.
Like, I was looking through everything you've ever done.

Speaker 2 It's almost like, no, you didn't, like. create any of it.
It wasn't like any, it was all existing stories that you came and like gave a badass angle to.

Speaker 2 By the way, 10 Cloverfield Lane is one of my favorite movies.

Speaker 2 I was like, whoa, when I found out the new Predator movies were being done by the 10 Cloverfield Lane guy, I was like, let's do this shit. I can't.
That's awesome.

Speaker 2 I thought Goodman deserved an Oscar for that movie or at least nominated. He was incredible.
I was like, was that like, that was a tour de force.

Speaker 2 And I don't want to jump too far into this from that, but like.

Speaker 2 Was he doing different takes of each scene? Like, because that's something I heard. And it was, oh, man.

Speaker 2 And you just like, you just in terms of your, I think you're asking, like, was he wildly different in different takes?

Speaker 2 Yeah, because I never knew what Goodman I was going to get, like, when he showed up on screen. Yes.

Speaker 2 That was very much a part of it, was pushing him in wildly different directions from take to take. And then

Speaker 2 we could really

Speaker 2 mess with people when we were cutting the movie together. All right.
All right. Going back, going back to

Speaker 2 the Fox and Disney, I did some look-ups and see where we could like maybe have some more. I'm going to pitch at you.
All right.

Speaker 2 I'm going to pitch at you.

Speaker 2 We could talk about it and you could say yes or no. And like, you know, it's a like, is the, so it has to be owned by Fox or Disney, right? In order for you to even think about including it.

Speaker 2 So they're like, here's your list. You know, what are we doing here? Okay.
Well, they're not saying that, but, but you are. I'm saying that.
I'm saying that. I'm saying lots of things.

Speaker 2 Thank you for pointing that out because I don't want to get you in trouble. But yeah,

Speaker 2 I speak wildly.

Speaker 2 So just know that anything I say, people at home, I'm talking to you right now. Anything I say is I'm saying it.
Anything Dan says, he's saying it.

Speaker 2 I lie a lot.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 Predator versus Lake Placid Crocodile. I got it.
I mean, I really think this is like, this could be amazing. This is, I mean, it's definitely like a huge being.

Speaker 2 I feel like the Predator would probably kill it pretty fast. I think so.
But I love, I love, I want to see it. Yeah, a a bunch of these, you know, how about this? Here's an interesting one.
The omen,

Speaker 2 Predator versus Satan.

Speaker 2 Like, is there God?

Speaker 2 Like, is there God on

Speaker 2 Yakja Prime? Like, does, like, do they have Satan? Do they, you know, like, do they have really? I don't think they believe in earthly.

Speaker 2 Hey, I don't believe in shit, but, you know, like,

Speaker 2 it doesn't mean it's not there. You know,

Speaker 2 so it's interesting. All right.
So the omen, probably not. Probably not going to see Predator vs.
Satan then.

Speaker 2 Here's one I really feel like would be a legitimately amazing fight. The Bone Tomahawk monster.
Bone Tomahawk was a fox.

Speaker 2 You've seen Bone Tomahawk, right? Yeah, the Kurt Russell. Yeah, Craig Thuller.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that shit was wild. Yeah.
And, you know, they fight against Indigenous people. You know, we see this, you know, so I feel like that could be a good fight.
Was that interested?

Speaker 2 That looks like I piqued your interest interest a little bit on that one. Yes, but I feel like I think we saw

Speaker 2 the Predator come down in that century

Speaker 2 already.

Speaker 2 Can the Predator try time travel? Is that what's going on here? No, no, no, no. They've just been around for quite a bit.
And so when they got Naru is her name, right? Yeah, Nadu, yeah.

Speaker 2 So at the end of Killer for Killers, can we talk about this? Yeah. Okay, cool.
The end of Killer for Killers, we see, you know, we see. Unless you haven't seen Killer of Killers, go watch it.

Speaker 2 Come back. Yeah, stop for a second.
But at the very end of Killer for Killers, phenomenal cartoon available in Hulu.

Speaker 2 You tease that you see Naru, and then we see Murdaw, and then we see

Speaker 2 Murtaugh. Yeah, Mike Harrigan.
Mike Harrigan and Dutch. And so

Speaker 2 they have like, they freeze bodies. Is that what they're doing up there?

Speaker 2 They do cryo and they just hold it for centuries. That's right.
That's right. You got it.
All right. And so are there, so are there any other centuries? Does he come back every century?

Speaker 2 Or no, because, I mean, Predator two and Predator one, I mean, he was back like that, but that might have been weeks apart for that's true. You're right.
You're right. All right, I stand corrected.

Speaker 2 I don't think it was weeks apart.

Speaker 2 It was 10 years. It was a decade apart.
Oh, okay. Okay.
So you're right. Bone Tomahawk and Predator.
You won. You win.

Speaker 2 I give up. I love lore.
I love lore. All right.
The fly. I don't think.
The fly probably wouldn't.

Speaker 2 But you get,

Speaker 2 you stick the predator in a flying machine.

Speaker 2 Oh,

Speaker 2 wow.

Speaker 2 Who knows what's going to happen? Who knows what's going to happen? Yeah.

Speaker 2 That is gnarly, dude. That is gnarly.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I know they've done like comics and stuff like that, but like, is there any like Marvel X-Men? I know that Archie's fought the Predator at some point, apparently.

Speaker 2 Yeah, they've done so many of those in the comics for sure. Yeah, but it's uh, is uh, Disney even hinted that they'll like just stay out away, stay away from our Marvel.

Speaker 2 Um, Disney hasn't brought up any of those kinds of things.

Speaker 2 No, I mean, they're they're they're once again, they're not they're they're kind of been looking to me as to you know where things could go predator-wise. Um,

Speaker 2 and uh, yeah, so you're the predator guy now,

Speaker 2 Yeah, and unless you know

Speaker 2 someone else awesome and you know, I mean, after your trio, dude, to me, it's you. If they take it from you, I'm pissed at this point.

Speaker 2 You know, they say you're you're running with this so much, and it's it's very impressive. Um, so but Cloverfield, the Cloverfield's not the same, it's not allowed, right? No, that's paramount.

Speaker 2 That's paramount? Fucking assholes. All right, how about this? TV.
All right, TV's not out of the

Speaker 2 To catch a predator, starring predator. Forget Chris Hansen.

Speaker 2 There's something on YouTube. Ah, I thought it was my idea.

Speaker 2 It's like a five-minute long, crazy sketch

Speaker 2 that's pretty wild. Just a predator throwing his voice as a little girl.
It's weird.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that'd be great. How about

Speaker 2 Predator, Yakja, comes to to Earth, all right?

Speaker 2 Gets caught, it's like it gets noticed, you know, gets caught on camera, starts realizing people

Speaker 2 love the idea that there's an alien on Earth. Predator starts to become a celebrity.
All right. Predator is now like, he's like, he's like, oh.
I'm into it. I'm into it.

Speaker 2 He's like, okay, I think this is, this is cool. This is cool.
I'm like, you know, it's almost like a running man type of situation.

Speaker 2 Then the predator, because he's an alien, it came from, people start worshiping him like he's a god. Okay?

Speaker 2 You know, kind of like Columbus or Cortez or something like that, you know? Predators being worshipped as a god

Speaker 2 can change, mimic people's voices,

Speaker 2 starts preaching, becomes.

Speaker 2 a mega church pastor, starts stealing money from the community, is still a predator, just in a different way.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 I like this. I love a good thematic story.
So,

Speaker 2 all right, all right, all right.

Speaker 2 Predator captured by the U.S. government in the 1960s.
Okay.

Speaker 2 He slipped up, he made a mistake, and he's captured. He's captured by the U.S.
government. They start running tests on him.
Alan Dulles shows up.

Speaker 2 He's like, all right, what do we, we got to, this thing, we got to use this.

Speaker 2 Alan Dulles, the head of the CIA in the 1960s. Okay, great.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's common knowledge.
We're all supposed to know that.

Speaker 2 My fans know this. All right.
So they say that.

Speaker 2 Did Rob know that? Rob knows it. Yeah, Rob knows it.

Speaker 2 He would actually, if he said he didn't, we'd have to fire him.

Speaker 2 So Alan Dulles gets a hold of him and he's like, all right, let's send the Predator through MK Ultra training. All right, they're going to send him, they're going to make him a weapon of the U.S.

Speaker 2 government. All right.
The Predator is now, he now works for us

Speaker 2 with mind control.

Speaker 2 Yes. It's like him and Reggie Jackson from Naked Gun.
And, you know, it's like, so

Speaker 2 he's out there. He, the Predator, full

Speaker 2 invisible

Speaker 2 second shooter on the grassy knoll.

Speaker 2 Uh-oh. Well, we would never know.
We never know. We never know.
We never know, but we would know if we made the movie and showed it. Right.

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 but I feel like that could be, because it doesn't make sense how the head blows up. You know, but if if the predator was on the grassy knoll and the head would blow up behind that way,

Speaker 2 it would all be interesting. I think we'd see the three dots, though.
Oh, yeah. Oh, but do you, would you see the three dots on the Zabruder? I mean, that's a shitty camera.
Let's face it.

Speaker 2 It's a shitty camera. It's true.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I think we could test this. We can go out to Dallas.
We'll get you a Zabruder. Yeah, it's like when James Cameron tested

Speaker 2 the door with two people on it to see if it worked. We'll go test to see if

Speaker 2 the Super 8 camera could could pick up the, you know. Yeah.
Are you going full Cameron, by the way? Like, full, like, is this Predator for Life?

Speaker 2 Is this what you're

Speaker 2 doing full avatar for life? You know, I don't think so, but it's been, but it's been

Speaker 2 what the only reason why I've done the three movies so far is because I'm telling wildly original stories that I'd want to do anyway.

Speaker 2 And I can do them within

Speaker 2 this franchise. So,

Speaker 2 and with this character that's made everything so much more rich and cool. So,

Speaker 2 that's the only reason why I've done even these.

Speaker 2 Yeah. But no,

Speaker 2 I'm excited to do lots of, as I did before,

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 I've done a little bit in TV and Cloverfield Ain as well.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Cloverfield Black Mirror, you're involved in. You got the boys.

Speaker 2 It looks like right now on IMDb it says there's a water World thing going on. No,

Speaker 2 update that shit. Yeah.

Speaker 2 That is not true.

Speaker 2 Okay, good. Yeah, because that's not true.
I do love Water World. I do love Water World very much.
You know, it's a great movie. I mean, it's a bad movie, but it's great.

Speaker 2 I would argue not even a bad movie.

Speaker 2 I think it's worth post Fury Road, post being invigorated by what that movie was, take another look at Water World.

Speaker 2 We just were not ready to see Kevin Costner drink his own pea at the time.

Speaker 2 But now we are.

Speaker 2 And now that we've seen,

Speaker 2 what's his name? Who's the

Speaker 2 Bill Gates? We've seen Bill Gates drink his own pee in his documentary. So now it's kind of missed that.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, yeah, you know,

Speaker 2 he brought a machine out to Africa. He was drinking poo-poo water.
It was a great thing. Wow.
So, have you hung out and talked to Arnold at all?

Speaker 2 I did. I did.
I did. Yeah, no,

Speaker 2 we got his approval

Speaker 2 for

Speaker 2 mentioning in Killer of Killers. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And he's

Speaker 2 been a big fan of what we've been doing. So

Speaker 2 that's been great.

Speaker 2 So if

Speaker 2 Arnold ever came back, obviously it would have to be

Speaker 2 in the cartoon version,

Speaker 2 in the animated version, because he's so old and we see him as a young Dutch.

Speaker 2 Have you guys, is

Speaker 2 any interest in that? Or is it just like you like to fuck with our heads a little bit? No, I mean,

Speaker 2 the ending of Killer Killers to me was a door opening for more stories for all of those characters and any character that survived in the franchise.

Speaker 2 And more stories can be told about how they end up there.

Speaker 2 More stories can be told for the next second, you know, after that, you know, and even far later, you know.

Speaker 2 So that's really an open door now. Yeah.
And you did such a great job with um

Speaker 2 getting rid of the R rating,

Speaker 2 and uh, and so I, it's, and I've never said that before I very much indulged in the R rating uh for Killer, Killers, and Prey, even, you know, so yeah, it's true, it's true, but for the new one, Badlands, yeah, I mean, for all intents and purposes, it's an R-rated film, but because, but it is a PG-13 because I guess because all the blood isn't red, is that really what it is?

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, it's just creatures and robots, you know, So we were able to do all the kinds of things that we normally do in a Predator movie.

Speaker 2 It just happens slightly different, but you're seeing a lot of crazy stuff. Yeah, no, it was awesome.
I fucking love the movie. So, but the

Speaker 2 when you were a kid, I was reading on your Wikipedia page.

Speaker 2 I did a quick little perusals. You weren't allowed to watch R-rated movies.
You weren't even allowed to watch like PG-13 movies.

Speaker 2 Not until I was like 12, you know,

Speaker 2 PG-13. Yeah.
Man, they let me see all that. I saw Predator like the moment it came out.
It was fucking awesome.

Speaker 2 My dad, as soon as it came on HBO, my dad's like, we're watching this tonight. Your mother's gone.

Speaker 2 But you were,

Speaker 2 you, it said that you like created like plots to these movies that you weren't allowed to see in your head. Yeah, I mean, I would, I mean, the

Speaker 2 prior to Predator even,

Speaker 2 I want Rambo. What year did Rambo 3 come out? Maybe it wasn't prior to Predator.
For the first time, it was wasn't Prider Predator. Maybe it might have been 89 or something like that.

Speaker 2 So Rambo, the first audio cassettes I ever purchased, I bought two the same day. It was the soundtrack to Nightmare in Elm Street 4

Speaker 2 and the soundtrack to Rambo 3.

Speaker 2 And I would listen to Rambo 3 every morning on the ride to camp and just picture the movie in my head. And that really

Speaker 2 fueled everything. And the same thing goes for Predator.

Speaker 2 As much as I hated my mom for not letting me watch all those movies when I was a kid, I have her to thank for

Speaker 2 sort of nurturing

Speaker 2 my imagination to really grow and

Speaker 2 come up with my own stories. And for Predator,

Speaker 2 there was a... a video game magazine called GamePro back in the day, and they had a contest to like design a level and they would feature it in the magazine.
And I designed a Predator level

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 sent it in and did not win the contest.

Speaker 2 It's still cool to do. It's a great thought exercise.

Speaker 2 So what was your Predator movie that you created in your brain?

Speaker 2 I guess I could say

Speaker 2 because the thing that stuck with me when I first heard of Predator

Speaker 2 was some friends of mine described the movie moment for moment, but they said that there's this awesome scene where Billy, the Native American tracker,

Speaker 2 cut his own chest with his knife

Speaker 2 and then fought the Predator on a bridge over a waterfall.

Speaker 2 And I was like, that sounds so badass. And I imagine this crazy, awesome, epic battle.
The movie, he cuts his chest, and then we hear Scream, and that's it.

Speaker 2 So, Prey, in many ways, is the like me

Speaker 2 fulfilling what my imagination craved,

Speaker 2 you know, way back then. Naru's brother

Speaker 2 in Prey, he gets the same scar. Now that I'm thinking, now that I hear you mention it.
He does.

Speaker 2 Not a lot of people have picked up. You got eyeballs.

Speaker 2 We were insistent on, and that blocking didn't quite make sense. Like, we kind of created that scene to happen in a certain way so that

Speaker 2 he would get that. And I remember directing the actors to, like, no, no, no, you have to hold it.
Like, you have to cut him exactly in this direction

Speaker 2 in this way. Yep.
Yeah, man. Those French fur trappers, they've never been represented well on film.
They've never, they've never, no one's ever been like, you know what, these guys were great.

Speaker 2 Now, you're talking about you made a predator um game you know to to

Speaker 2 you know just for fun or when you were younger uh you also worked on the hellboy 2 alternate reality game uh any predator i feel like hasn't really gotten his video game yet any have you thought about that at all yeah it's just to say the hellboy 2 is it was just it was viral it was one of the first commercial because i was a commercial director it was just viral marketing for it um arg they used to call those like i have no idea what had a big one and and where

Speaker 2 there's a link to a website and then numbers and for for Hellboy 2 it was like these like found footage videos of trolls

Speaker 2 appearing places but

Speaker 2 Predator yeah no predator has there's a very cool game now called hunting grounds that's like

Speaker 2 you know someone is the predator and then there's four soldiers and that predator gets to hunt down the other four people.

Speaker 2 There was a game that I missed, sadly,

Speaker 2 called Concrete Jungle that is the most similar to Badlands and

Speaker 2 it was the kind of game that I love out of the Predator franchise, which is like a

Speaker 2 third-person action-adventure, you know, open-world game.

Speaker 2 Would be really cool.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 one last question

Speaker 2 about

Speaker 2 Deck from Badlands. And I just wanted to, how long has he been training that he's like, because he's the runt.

Speaker 2 It's about the runt of the litter. I don't think I'm giving anything away with that.
And he goes on to like find what the what creature he wants to kill.

Speaker 2 But how long has he been training to become a failure? Like in his father's eyes?

Speaker 2 I think

Speaker 2 he is teenaged. Okay, he's teenaged.
Yeah, he seemed like that a little bit. He definitely had that like, I'm going to do anything I want kind of attitude.
So yeah, that makes sense. Now,

Speaker 2 Yakja, are they all dudes?

Speaker 2 Like, the ones we've met, anyway. The ones we've met are all dudes, yeah.
So, they, they, they're very, uh, I guess, misogynistic culture, maybe?

Speaker 2 They're like the guys go out and fight. We haven't seen, we haven't seen, we just haven't seen yet, you know.
Hell yeah, hell yeah. No, we haven't seen yet.
That's correct. I'm very excited.

Speaker 2 What's going to come? What comes next?

Speaker 2 Um, so I'm so excited to see anything else you make i can't wait to re-watch badlands uh i'll probably go and see it in the theater again uh i got my amc stubs i can go as much as i want uh yeah you know it was so good i love seeing the theater the last i've liked every version of the predator but i feel like you have taken it to another level and i i can't wait to see what you're able to pull through in the in the in the future with this man i can't wait to see it's oh and fluffer nutter sandwiches love them by the way hey where are you from originally?

Speaker 2 I'm from Florida, but I'm all over the place. Yeah, we eat them.

Speaker 2 We eat trash. It doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 But I saw you made everyone eat them on one of your sets. On every single set.
And in New Zealand, they called them nutty fluffies. Nutty Fluffies.
So they have them out there. No, no, I just

Speaker 2 told them how to make it, and then they decided that was called a nutty fluffy.

Speaker 2 They misheard me or something. Well, check out your A1C.

Speaker 2 Make sure that everything's going to be okay.

Speaker 2 I hope that we get to see some more Alien vs. Predator.
I love that you're buddies with Fade A Alvarez. Of course you are.
Everything both of you are doing is incredible.

Speaker 2 Keep up the good work, Dan. It has been such a pleasure to meet you.
And I can't wait for more, buddy. You keep up.

Speaker 2 Go see the movie. Go see it in the theater.
I'm sick of this just on Hulu stuff. No offense, Disney lady that's listening, but I want more theater predator.
Let's do it. That's a hard sentence to say.

Speaker 2 That's the thing. Every time you talk about the predator, you're like, oh my God, am I going to get canceled? But you're like, no, I'm talking about the option.
All right. Dan, man.
Get out of here.

Speaker 2 You're a busy man. Go do your work.

Speaker 2 Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 Thanks, guys.

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