Dan Trachtenberg Interview

Aaron: In the past you spoke about wanting to keep the Predator connection secret. Alluding to the fact that you were going to reveal it during marketing. What’s your plan for that kind of thing?

Dan: Also part of the pitch once again to get them to want to make this movie whilst making the other, was that the first teaser would be her going off on a journey to prove herself. Then there’d be like a fire in the sky like a ship coming down and that’s it. It would have no title or if it did it would have a fake title would not be Predator at all but you would get “Oh this awesome interesting story of Comanche but sci-fi. What the f**k is that?”

Already a cool premise. Already a movie and then later when my pitch was when Shane’s movie comes out, attached to the opening day of that movie is the full trailer. When this teaser plays out as is and then it keeps going into perhaps the bear scene and it’s with that, that you reveal “Oh that movie you were already interested in, that’s a Predator movie.” In a perfect world, you could not even have it in the trailer. So that was the initial pitch and couldn’t happen.

Adam: Though the film didn’t get a theatrical release, you did get to travel to various screenings of the film and experience it in a theatrical setting to some very positive responses. Overall, just what was your experience like attending all these different screenings you had for the film?

Dan: I mean the Comic-Con one. I’m so glad you were there for that. The Comic-Con was… I’ve never had a moment like that in my life of like being so terrified of… and we knew people liked the movie and we had done screenings with friends and family and internally at Disney and the marketing folks finally said “Oh we love the movie, Dan.”

That all feels good. We never did a recruited audience. We just did friends and family. We did a screening in Oklahoma for Comanche with a rough cut just to include everyone’s thoughts in the making of it but never the traditional test screening that you hear of. On the one hand, people are saying “These are fans so they’re gonna love it.” On the other hand, you’re like “These are fans so they may hate it.”

In the in all of our friends and family screens even when the film was further along and people liked the movie, there was never a reaction to beats and moments. The way everyone reacted from the beginning was like… and that’s carried through to every screening. Like so many applause moments. Like all those things happened and like there’s that video of Brendan Fraser… like if there was a camera on me… like I was fighting it so hard because it because you’re held on the whole time. To be validated like that was such a relief. It just felt so incredible.

I have no recollection of the Q&A afterwards. Like the whole time. I was just like “I cannot believe that.” I couldn’t believe where people applauded and what people dug and like the way people dug into the movie. The thing I want I was upset that the movie wasn’t theatrical. Culturally for honoring the indigenous folks in the movie first and foremost and then it’s like what any director would want like. The best quality picture and even more so, the best quality sound. Much more than picture. What I had totally forgotten was because of Covid and had been so long since I’d seen a movie or a movie like this, I guess. Even though I know I made it.

But it’s like to be watching a movie where it’s not just jump scares that people have together in a theatre, it’s applauding for cool shit and what a treasured experience to have that and it’s different than having your friends over on the couch and you guys go “Isn’t this awesome?” When you’re with strangers and there’s this weird feeling like we’re all like “Yeah!” Here’s the reflection of two memories.

It was deeply influenced by Hong Kong action movies, and I saw John Woo’s Hard-Boiled in my basement alone and my jaw was on the floor, and I run upstairs and tell my parents like “You won’t believe this. I just saw the craziest thing. This guy’s sliding down a banister where two guns.”  You just had this private nobody understands the greatness that I saw moment and then seeing Jackie Chan’s First Strike which is Police Story 4 in a movie theater and in the latter fight, there’s a beat at the end of the fight and I instigated a standing ovation in the middle of a movie and it just was like this “Isn’t this amazing? We all just saw this together. How cool is this?”

And that is a treasured part of theatrical experience I had totally forgotten about and the Comic-Con thing and then chanting. It was just so crazy. It was so cool because we had just been in the dark the whole time. So, it was great. The London screening was not quite like that. There was still some fun interactions. It wasn’t like Comic-Con though and I freaked out and I knew it’ll never be like Comic-Con again in my life.

Like it’ll never play like that but everyone who’s in charge of international press whatever, she’s like “This is just how it is this culturally in the UK. This is how it is.” I will say that Beyond Fest, the reaction is very much mirrored and then when I watched the reaction videos, it’s like “Oh yeah the beats do play a certain way in a good way, in a positive way.” So yeah, London was a little bit funky, and I was definitely a little depressed afterwards.

Aaron: Naturally a lot of us are wondering about the possibility of that home release. I want it on that shelf behind me. Are you aware of any plans? Is it a likelihood?

Dan: I have no idea but it’s hard to imagine that there wouldn’t but then I don’t know. If there isn’t precedent for a streaming thing to have physical media. I wonder if there is. I haven’t looked into it, but I know that the guy runs 20th is a hardcore fan just like you and I and loves toys, loves merch. If it could happen, he would try very hard to make it happen. It’s hard to imagine there could be like a boxset that doesn’t include… yeah, it’d be really strange so I think there would be, but I literally have zero information on the matter.

Adam: With the film being so well received, there’s been a question as to if we’ll be seeing any merchandise. One thing we have heard of is a NECA figure in the works but are there any other plans you can speak to about that?

Dan: I know that there are action figures in the works, and I’ve seen some bits but yeah, I can’t say anything.

Adam: A vinyl of Sarah’s score would be awesome too.

Dan: What Sarah did was exceptional. I’ll tell you guys the funny thing about that score was when we initially tempted the movie, it was all like Sicario and very modern because I didn’t want to feel like music you typically hear when you’re spending time with Native Americans, and I didn’t want it to be Predator. In all fairness if it had been a while since we heard the Silvestri score, I probably would have. This would be cool to like bring it back but everyone had continually done that.

So, I was like well now that’s not cool and I really wanted to feel like unexpected music with the aesthetic and the setting. That’s why we leaned on Sicario, Hildur and Jóhann Jóhannsson. That kind of score and there’s still some stuff in that zone in the movie but there was one part when she goes off on her journey and we had as temp there one of my favorite scores of all time. It was James Newton Howard. It was Snow White and the Huntsman and it’s this beautiful sweeping fantasy and it was so wrong in all in the rough cuts that we would show because it’s nothing like the rest… it’s so hard… we had temp music that’s all over the place.

It really affects the watch of the movie, it was so… but I was like “Oh my god. I’ve never thought I was gonna be able to make a movie that could have a score like that like this. Are we doing this? Are we making a big heartfelt epic?” I didn’t realize that we had done it and then Sarah got her hands on it and was able to find a way to have the music accomplish what all the more modern kind of stuff does and then go big and sweeping and not feel overly sentimental and overly cheesy and just be really rooting and winning and deeply emotional and epic.

She just found a way to merit all those tones and not just scored that’s effective. A lot of those scores are really effective in a movie but not one that I would listen to as a fan of movie scores and what Sarah wrote, every track is like… and then the Predator thing was the big deal because of what I mentioned with the temp was how we used the Silvestri score and was like “If there’s any way Sarah…” Just basically challenged her. “Can you find a way to do your thing with the Silvestri music so that when we cut to the Predator, we hear the…” and so we know like a Predator movie is coming for us.

Adam: We both missed it.

Dan: Some of that is the mix and I think in some of the premiere had a better… I think it was 5.1. 7.1 is better and the home is better. But yeah, it’s undeniable when you listen to it as a track.

Aaron: Yeah, I mean even then, it kind of had to be pointed out to me because the tempo is a lot slower. So going back to the London thing and I’m sat there watching the credits and it gets to the music stuff. Predator theme by Alan Silvestri. “When the hell was that in it?”

Yeah, and then when it’s pointed out, I can’t not hear it now and I think it’s brilliant. I just think she disguises it so well in there that it’s so damn obvious once you know what it is and just the way it builds into that horror sort of vibe of the music for the Predator in the film, I was like this is some of the best use of Silvestri’s motifs and melody in the series.

Adam: When I first heard Sarah was going to be on the project, I was familiar with her work just through playing through Assassin’s Creed Origins and Modern Warfare 2019. I loved her scores for those so yeah when I first heard she was on this, I was like this would be great.

Dan: We were prepping the movie. I had my PC with me, and I was playing an Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. I loved Origins but I was playing Valhalla at the time. I played Origins, Odyssey. I was playing Valhalla. I was like “This is beautiful music. What is that?” And just like what we needed, did not feel tropey Viking but was beautiful. Felt like it transcended the kind of music you would expect to hear but felt historically appropriate. It just had everything and to see Sarah Schachner’s name.

I was like “Who is this? We must find her.” And then I saw everything else. Her score for Anthem even though that game is… but she did that very interesting thing with vocal modularization that I love. So not only did she do something that felt very orchestral but also synthy stuff. It just felt like the perfect person for the movie.

Adam: On the note again of the make one more chant from the Comic Con screening, many fans are wondering if you have interest in returning to direct another Predator film, whether that might be sequel detailing how Greyback gets the flintlock or taking the Predator to a different period in time?

Dan: I would be interested to do something that would function like this movie where it’s just a very unexpected, a really unique way in and primarily a movie and on top of that, a great Predator movie. That’s something I would be interested in making. I do think there are things that we have not seen that are worthy of being a movie. Of all the movies that have been made, there’s some that haven’t. So that would be cool, but we shall see.

Aaron: We’ve seen pictures of you on the set of Prey sporting the hat of the enemy – wearing the Weyland-Yutani hat so I’m assuming you’re an alien fan. Would you have any interest in Alien or better yet Alien vs Predator? For many fans the AvP movies we got weren’t the ones they wanted and there’s this desire that it can still be done right. Are you gonna course correct AvP like you course corrected Predator?

Dan: It’s so interesting that it’s not just Alien and Predator, it’s Terminator. I’m surprised you guys don’t also cover Terminator because those three movies are so linked. I mean they came out in a certain proximity to each other but I guess because they were a similar kind of mashup of science fiction and horror but there’s something about McTiernan and James Cameron that feels cut from the same cloth of both being interested in like paramilitary authenticity but also with big imagination and all three of those to me just share a fascinating DNA.

I don’t know that there’s movies today that are like so different from different filmmakers. Not the same people that made them but yet they feel so linked. I love Alien. I love Terminator. I love Predator. I’m not trying to say anything about Terminator. We talk about it on set like Terminator also. There’s something about these three movies that really feel like they’re cut from the same cloth but yeah, I love Alien.

You could ask me about any for anything, my answer would be the same. If I had an awesome idea and maybe I do, maybe I don’t. But if I had an awesome an idea that I thought that could be… I’ll tell you that the thing that that really… speaking of Terminator, it occurred to me when we’re getting close to the release of this movie, I was really excited for my mom to see it which is crazy when you think about what’s in this movie and she loved it and I was reminded when I was a kid, how excited I was for my mom to see T2.

Was not excited to show my mom Terminator but T2, I wanted her to see because T2 is thematic about something incredibly emotional and has great set pieces. It’s got it all and that’s now a thing, I can’t really let go of is. Like that’s what I’m after. Especially after having made this and letting it be to some, not to everyone but to some a beautiful movie, a beautiful experience that also is insane and gnarly and vicious and I think you can do both. So those are the things I’m looking for is how can I make a movie function. Continue to make movies that function that way and then there’s certainly room inside. So many franchises, IP, pre-existing characters that could allow themselves to have stories like that.

Aaron: This is from one of our members called Kradan. So, as we’ve talked about how Prey was pitched. When Prey was pitched, The Predator was in production. It’s not very well received let’s be honest and Kradan’s wondering, was there ever a point where it looked like that negative reaction to The Predator was going to impact Prey?

Dan: That is what happened. The timing lines up with when the merger happened. It all just sort of made them put pause and then see post-merger… the one thing I knew. I think it’s also why I didn’t give up hope and why I didn’t just say “Oh maybe we’ll become another character” and all the other things I said earlier, is that it’s not like they’re not gonna never make a Predator movie again and the movie that you make… the script for Shane’s maybe was very kitchen sink.

Was very like let’s go crazy. The speaking predators and the smoking and I feel like that if you’re gonna do it, you do that and then it’s gonna be divisive no matter what. They ended up with something divisive anyway. Like at least be crazy because people I think now especially today, we embrace those things. We embraced those bold swings but so what, but I knew that in success they’re going to make more.

Cool for us but even if it didn’t succeed, the movie that you make when you when the last one was let’s just go crazy is a more pure back to what the original intended. That kind of thing. So, I felt strongly at some point when they decide again that we had a real possibility and the Spider-Man movie… the gap between when you make a movie that didn’t quite work and when you can just restart again or whatever has been shrinking our whole lives. So, I remained optimistic.

Adam: Darkseid asks how it feels to make a movie in a franchise with passionate fans while trying to show something new. Does the fan base scare away fresh ideas you would like to bring to the table?

Dan: Obviously not because Aaron should have scared me away but like I’m a die-hard fan. We’re all fans in different ways and everyone on your forum, all fans in different ways. I’ve heard you guys’ different feelings on Predators versus Predator 2 and which one’s the stronger between the two of them and I’m a fan, so I trusted my own instincts and the people that I was working with who were fans and not fans and also cool is cool is cool.

No matter what. If something’s good and usually if it’s more narratively oriented… if there’s like a reason for a thing that can be quite winning. So, I knew if we were basing our decisions on character stuff, we’d be better off for it. So can’t win them all but that’s okay. I’ve also been on the internet for a very long time in terms of making things for the internet, having started with podcasting and all that stuff like. So, I’m quite able to objectively look at negative feedback and positive feedback and recognize that none of it is fact and that if there’s a there’s an opinion to be had, it will be. No matter what. I assume the worst and hope for the best from anything. I did feel the pressure but in a normal human way. I certainly didn’t let myself drown on that.

Adam: Aaron Woodward wants to know in your opinion what is it about the Predator that makes it such an enduring and classic Hollywood monster.

Dan: I think two things. One is the obvious. It’s just a friggin’ great design and we have so many of those things in pop culture and the Predator is one of them. When I was announcing the movie, I got messaged on Instagram from like a father-daughter who dresses up as Predator. I think the father was writing on behalf of the daughter and she said I’m so excited for your movie. The Predator is my favorite character. I’m not allowed to see it but it’s my favorite character.

That says it all right. That creature just is a cool looking thing and on top of that, I think it’s unique in it being the idea of a sentient intelligent being that is also a creature. It’s usually one or the other right. We’re usually seeing a xenomorph is just a ferocious… it’s animalistic. It’s an animal or you’re seeing like Close Encounters, a different kind of alien and Predator is sort of a combination of those two concepts that aren’t often put together.

It’s unique in that if you look at it, especially when it came out and we’re seeing it function like a slasher movie and all the other slashers don’t have the code. You could see it being a good guy at some point. In our movie, it is for a scene, against the fur Trappers but and as a kid, you’re like “Okay it’s not gonna kill me.” When you’re watching horror movies, you just think of like how would I how would I survive this movie. Like the Predator gives you an out so I think for all those reasons that’s why it’s endured so much but certainly the aesthetics are the primary reason.

Aaron: Is there anything you’d like to say? Any anecdote or thought that we just haven’t given you the opportunity to express from their questions?

Dan: I don’t think so. This has been incredibly thorough, and I appreciate the opportunity to be so thorough with you guys in particular is great and I’m so glad that you guys dug the movie. I’m particularly heartened to see your fair-minded coverage of it even in the anticipation of it. You’re very well your right to be very cautious in your optimism of it but I also do appreciate the optimism before the movie came out and not being a platform for the small but sometimes vocal ugliness surrounding all kinds of genre movies that that don’t star Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Look exactly like him. Yeah, this has been awesome. I’m so thank you guys for coming to the theater to see it, not to make all your listeners adjust that but hopefully you guys are right. Hopefully there’ll be more actual experiences to be had for everyone and yeah thank you for the support and the coverage and all that and I’m excited to see what else you guys have in store.