As more outlets continue to share interviews with director Dan Trachtenberg and producer Jhane Myers, we’re starting to gleem more details about Prey! Now thanks to an interview with Collider, Trachtenberg has shared some details about how the creative team behind his upcoming Predator film came together.
I tracked down Patrick. I originally pitched the story to Fox and they loved the initial take, and then Patrick was a writer that I'd wanted to work with, forever. He's written several things that have just not been produced. One is a historical piece about Nazi hunters in the seventies, and the other is this awesome Groundhog Day on a space station, science fiction thing that cleverly uses technology and is not very verbal. And so, I thought he would be a great fit, as I was trying to figure out this movie. We crafted the story together, and then continued to send it up the chain to Fox, and they let us write it.
Very early on, after just the first couple drafts to make sure we were even on the right course, we linked up with a woman named Juanita Pahdopony, who's unfortunately since passed away, but she was Comanche and really helped us figure out the movie. And then, when we needed a producer, we tracked down Jhane [Myers]. When I first spoke with Jhane, I realized she had a lot in common with Naru, the lead character of this movie, and we would be lucky to have her, as a person, aside from even being a talented producer, herself. I couldn't believe she existed. It was just awesome.
In the same interview, Dan also teased the possibility of Prey receiving limited theatrical releases. When asked about how the movie being released on Hulu effected the budget for the film, the Director reminded how the film was originally intended for 20th Century Fox before the merger, and how he hoped for theatrical possibilties.
It started out at 20th, and then, after the merger, Hulu became the release platform. It was never a situation of, because it's streaming, it has a streaming movie budget. It has a very economical budget. Certainly not as big as the last one, but I think we had all the money we needed to make the movie as grand as it needed to be. This is an epic movie. What was so exciting about the original Predator was that it was a genre mash-up of action and horror.
This movie, I think, is scarier than they have been for a while, but in my mind, it's a mash-up of adventure and suspense. It's a grand, sweeping, epic movie, that is being gifted to people to watch on their televisions. Hopefully, there likely will be some potential theatrical experiences for some people to get to.
Companies such as Fathom Events are helping push limited releases for films such as Prey and are one possibility for how Prey might actually get a limited release on the big screen.
Speaking to SlashFilm in another interview, Trachtenberg was asked about storytelling within a world dominated by IPs such as Predator and how filmmakers are “having to smuggle their ideas and interests” to get their stories out there.
I think so. Frankly — I’ve mentioned this to some friends before — I think Marvel is more of a platform for movies than just a company that makes comic book movies. I think the way we are getting our heist movies and our road movies and our political thrillers are just through IP. One of the things that I’ve been searching for when I’ve dabbled in trying to develop stuff for an IP is like, “Is this movie awesome without the IP? Is this already a cool movie?” But not how do I smuggle it into the IP but more, with this one, does that make it even more awesome?
I was a little bit heartbroken when — this movie started out as a Fox thing, and then the merger happened and I didn’t know that this could exist, could still happen. And I was thinking about, “Can we take this idea and make it non-IP?” But the themes of the movie, so much in the engine of this, is based on the IP, is stronger because of how the Predator functions and interacts with what our main character is going through. So to answer your question, yes, I think that is absolutely happening. I don’t think that’s the worst thing in the world. But I think what makes something great is when it feels like it’s already an awesome idea, and then when it’s connected to the IP that makes it even more special.
The Comanche dub of the film was also discussed with SlashFilm and Trachtenberg confirmed that the original actors would be recording the dialogue in Comanche for the dub.
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