Trachtenberg remembers exactly how he first encountered the Predator story – and like many of us, it was at a much younger age than its 18-rating would suggest...
"Predator came out when I was in third grade. I was not allowed to see it, and rightfully so! But I was in the van on the way to a karate tournament with a bunch of sixth graders. And they described the entire movie to me, including a beat where Billy, the Native American scout (Sonny Landham), carved into his own chest and fought the predator on a waterfall. And then I saw the movie, and that scene is not really in it! But that always captured my imagination. I always wanted to see that movie, you know. And that is also a part of the genesis of this."
Focusing on Native American hunters as the ideal counterpoint to the extraterrestrial menace was something that Trachtenberg had in mind from the start.
"That was my initial pitch to Fox [before it was purchased by Disney], the notion of how cool it would be to make a movie that focuses on a Native American story, to make a Western that has no cowboys in it," says Trachtenberg. "That's a movie which really does not exist. It shockingly doesn't. And I just I wanted to make a movie that would be told primarily visually and through action."
Which brought up a challenge for the filmmaker. "How do you engage in a very economical way, and still tell an emotional story? I'm not an athlete in any way, I do not follow sports, but I love sports movies, primarily because they feel like action movies that you don't need laser guns for. But they always feel warm and hopeful, you know. And so, I thought, 'if I could have the engine of a sports movie, tell a real underdog story inside this action movie, it could feel really gripping and moving.' Part and parcel with that underdog story was, 'what if we make it about someone, and a people that also, in media, are the underdog? Who are the people that never have a light shined on them?'"
https://www.empireonline.com/movies/news/prey-trailer-breakdown-director-dan-trachtenberg-on-thwarting-expectations-generating-suspense-and-targeting-new-characters/