Badlands’ Sneak Peek Reveals Full Details About Elle Fanning’s Mysterious Double Role [Exclusive]

Today, Elle Fanning is inviting fans to join the hunt in Collider’s exclusive featurette ahead of the release of Predator: Badlands. This time around, the Predator will become the prey as Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) fights to make a name for himself on the most dangerous planet in the universe. But, he won’t be alone, as he’ll stumble upon help from an unlikely source — a Weyland Yutani synth named Thia (Fanning). In a sci-fi take on a buddy comedy, director Dan Trachtenberg returns to the franchise to deliver yet another promising installment to further the universe along later this week on November 7.

Step into the Badlands with Fanning in our exclusive sneak peek, where she and several other members of the team introduce her one-of-a-kind character, Thia. Referring to Dek and Thia as “Chewbacca and C-3PO”, Trachtenberg describes the early days of bringing the characters to life through his vision for what will be his third installment in the franchise. Adding a level of intrigue to what we already know about Badlands, Fanning reveals that Thia’s main drive in the film will be to reunite with her sister, Tessa, who she describes as “more scientific” and less driven by emotion than her twin. Although playing two different characters might be troubling for some, Trachtenberg says that Fanning knocks it out of the park and that audiences have plenty to look forward to from her performance when Predator: Badlands stomps into cinemas.

What’s Next For the ‘Predator’ Franchise?

Image via 20th Century Studios

With not just one, but two Predator movies arriving over the last year, there’s never been a better time to be a fan. After restoring glory to the film series with 2022’s Prey, Trachtenberg took a swing at adult animation earlier this year with Predator: Killer of Killers, which not only moved into new territory but also set up the possible return of multiple favorite characters from the Predator fold. Previously speaking about his long-running game plan for the sci-fi universe, the filmmaker said:

“After Prey came out, and I started thinking about sequel stuff, there were three ideas that I had. Killers is one, Badlands is two and the third one is something else. The reason why I felt possessed to make them and sort of why I rushed – I did two at once because I could do, I could multitask with animation – was because I was so eager to get to the third thing… There’s a lot of cool ideas out there and none of them are just like, ‘Oh, we have to say the next part of this story because it was successful.’ All of it is like, ‘Whoa, no one has done that in sci-fi . No one has done that in Predator. No one’s done that with the creature,’ all of those ideas are generated from that instinct. So, yeah, there is definitely a third thing that I’d love to get to when Badlands is finished.”

Check out our exclusive behind-the-scenes featurette of Predator: Badlands above and see it in cinemas on November 7.

Release Date

November 5, 2025

Runtime

107 minutes

Director

Dan Trachtenberg

Writers

Dan Trachtenberg, Patrick Aison, John Thomas, Jim Thomas

Producers

Brent O’Connor, John Davis, Marc Toberoff, Dan Trachtenberg, Ben Rosenblatt

Franchise(s)

Predator

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  Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi

  Dek / Father