Following in the footsteps of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Dutch in battling a Predator is a very different hero in the upcoming new Predator movie, Prey. Naru is a Comanche hunter whose life on the Great Plains of 18th century America bring her into direct – and very violent – contact with one of those lethal life forms.
She’s hunter-turned-prey, and as you can see from this exclusive new still from the movie, the odds are heavily stacked against her. Her intergalactic foe lingers menacingly in the background as Naru (pronounced ‘Nardu’) regrets not picking a bigger tree to use as cover.
Director Dan Trachtenberg (10 Cloverfield Lane) is the latest filmmaker to be entrusted with the enduring Predator franchise and he’s promising to infuse its old ‘desperate humans vs remorseless alien hunter’ concept with new ideas and a fresh spirit.
‘I wanted [the Predator] to be scarier than we've seen it before,’ he tells Time Out. ‘It's bipedal, it's intelligent and it has advanced technology, and that makes it even more difficult to take on. But because the movie is set 300 years in the past, those things need to feel a little bit older than we've seen before, but also still far more advanced than what we think our earthlings would be able to handle.’
‘I wanted to make sure the head was more proportional to the body,’ he adds. ‘This predator is much slimmer and less armoured than it's ever been. It’s more ‘creature’. It's still hulking and ferocious.’
Playing Naru is The Ice Road’s Amber Midthunder, who headlines a cast of First Nations actors. That groundbreaking casting is reinforced by Prey’s historic Comanche dub: the first time a Hollywood movie has be released in Comanche. Of course, it’s available to watch in English too.
Prey will be streaming on Disney+ where it’s available worldwide, and Hulu in the US from August 5. Check out the trailer here.
Everything you need to know about Prey in one handy explainer.
Find out where Predator lands among our 101 Greatest Action Movies Ever Made.