In the modern era, the world gets more sequels, reboots, remakes, reimaginings, and blatant rip-offs than original ideas on the big screen. Most franchise pieces put their marketable names and faces all over every poster, but one recent example tried to escape that gimmick. Dan Trachtenberg's Prey is part of a beloved franchise, but if he'd had his way, we would've all been surprised.
Advertising a franchise film is easy. Use a slow version of a memorable song, tease the new faces with some familiar visuals thrown in, and time the crescendo with the biggest returning character or concept. Boom, another "stuff we remember" sequel is in the bag. It's advertising on easy mode, but what if a filmmaker tried to bump it up to hard?
Way back in 2016, Dan Trachtenberg was a fresh-faced 35-year-old man who'd just dropped his feature directorial debut. That film, 10 Cloverfield Lane, immediately catapulted him into mainstream success as an in-demand talent. The very same year, Trachtenberg and screenwriter Patrick Aison had an idea. They wanted to make a prequel to the beloved 1987 action classic Predator, a film that imagines the first encounter between the deadly alien hunter and humanity. The franchise was ongoing, but suffering a slump. They approached producer John Davis during the making of the poorly-received 2018 film The Predator. That film crashed and burned, so Trachtenberg and Aison had another idea. In late 2019, when their Predator prequel started production, it would do so under the name Skulls and without any mention of the iconic Yautja.
Pre-production on Skulls began in December 2019. As everyone in the world knows, that means it didn't get very far before the ongoing pandemic shut it down. Articles were written about Skulls, in which the reporters dutifully referred to it under its semi-accurate description. According to Jacob Fisher of Discussing Film, Skulls would "follow a Comanche woman who goes against gender norms and traditions to become a warrior." That's all true, but thanks to Trachtenberg and Aison's clever concealment, it hides the film's place in a larger franchise. Unfortunately, the production shut down due to COVID, and that gap allowed the internet to do what it does. In November 2020, Mike Fleming Jr. co-editor-in-chief of Deadline broke the news that Skulls was the fifth entry in the Predator franchise.
The comments on that Deadline article are absolutely miserable. It's a funeral for a friend, everyone gathered around to toss a handful of dirt on the coffin. It's a real punch in the gut to look back at now, living in the world in which Prey came out and massively outperformed expectations. Conventional marketing wisdom says that studios must bombard audiences with the exact same thing every time. They think we'll flee in terror if we don't see something we remember within the first minute or two. Giving new ideas to a modern audience is treated like giving medicine to a feral cat. Yet, people were interested in Skulls and furious when the ostensibly marketable IP revealed itself. No reaction was more heartbreaking than Trachtenberg's. He famously tweeted "This was meant to be a surprise. Been working on this for almost 4 years now. I am very sad that what we had in store for how you could discover this movie will no longer happen."
Prey turned out great. People loved it, it's seen as either the best entry in the franchise since the original or the best of all time. However, imagine the reality in which people hear about Skulls, decide to watch it on the day it premieres, and see the film's masterful first look at the Predator without having it spoiled. It would be one of the most magical moments in modern sci-fi history. Does everyone remember the moment the new Yautja first appears? It slaughters a bear, drenching its invisible body in viscera, allowing its outline to be seen for the first time. That shot would be the visual signifier for a new world of movie marketing if everyone hadn't spoiled the fun two years in advance. It could've been the moment that at least some studios finally understand that the world wants new stuff. Not just new takes on old franchises, but new ideas and new execution.
Hollywood is terrified of risk. It always has been and always will be. The studios need someone to kick in the door and show them that new ideas are still at a premium these days. People are always going to love the films they enjoyed years ago, filmmakers are always going to come up with new ways to tackle those concepts. Boring "stuff we remember" sequels are slowly killing the world's enthusiasm for the concept of franchises. Remember those defeated comments when Prey was finally revealed? That's the default reaction whenever a new take on a classic hits the screen. It's time to fix that, one shocking reveal at a time.
