Perhaps the box office recovery this month won’t be as much of a slow ramp-up as expected. Disney/20th Century’s “Predator: Badlands” set a franchise record with a $40 million opening weekend, the highest ever for a solo “Predator” movie, even after inflation adjustment.
With a reported budget of around $105 million, it still has a long way to go to be a true hit for 20th Century. But the outlook for the film is way better than “Tron: Ares,” a $180 million film that has only grossed $137 million worldwide, as “Badlands” is enjoying strong word-of-mouth that includes the best CinemaScore grade for a “Predator” film at A-.
Even in the best-case scenario, “Predator: Badlands” won’t outgross pricier yet underperforming Disney franchise films like Marvel’s “Thunderbolts*” ($382 million worldwide), but it could be a film that breathes new life into a 1980s IP that seemed to be running on fumes when Disney acquired it with the 2019 Fox merger.
That is, if it can bring in a new generation of fans. This was the definition of a Millennial/Gen X hit.
Under-25-year-olds made up only 21% of the opening weekend audience for “Predator: Badlands,” according to weekend data from Disney insiders. That’s while 32% of moviegoers came from the 25-34 demographic and 47% were over the age of 35.
The task before Disney now is expanding the reach of “Badlands” over the next few weeks to fully capitalize on this IP revival, one of the first Fox properties to be successfully rehabbed under Disney ownership. But they’ll face competition from a slew of Hollywood heavy-hitters throughout the month, even as the PG-13 rating of “Predator: Badlands” could more easily woo the younger crowd.
A new day for the Yautja
Instead of being an R-rated sci-fi horror film like the rest of the “Predator” films, “Badlands” is a PG-13 action-adventure that positions one of the fearsome Yautja as a rootable hero rather than the deadly hunter going after the human protagonists.
That hero is Dek, a Yautja who is forced to watch his father murder his brother for disobeying his order to kill Dek for being the runt of the clan. Determined to honor his brother’s sacrifice and prove himself to his father, he crash-lands on the deadly planet Genna as he plans to hunt down the Kalisk, a monstrous creature rumored to be unkillable.
The film is filled with the gruesome kills one expects from a “Predator” film. Dek bisects a giant alien in slow-motion and kills multiple synths, androids from the “Alien” mythos that serve the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. But the alien sprays purple blood on Dek and the synths’ guts are white, allowing “Badlands” to keep a PG-13 rating that sets it apart from Paramount’s R-rated action film “The Running Man,” due out this Friday.
Along with the intense action, audiences have been enjoying the surprising amounts of humor and emotion the film mines from Dek’s unlikely relationship with Thia (Elle Fanning), a synth that survived a Kalisk attack and who convinces the Yautja to help her. It’s a relationship that both director Dan Trachtenberg and Disney are confident could be the start of a new series within the “Predator” franchise, as the film ends with a sequel hook.
Pivoting from horror to action-adventure could have backfired if the fans didn’t accept it, but the reception from “Predator” fans has been largely positive. That’s both from those who have been longtime fans since the series started with John McTiernan and Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1987 and those who have recently come onboard with Trachtenberg’s pair of Hulu-exclusive franchise entries, “Prey” and “Predator: Killer of Killers,” the latter of which came out this past summer.
It once again proves a tried-and true rule for Hollywood when it comes to franchise filmmaking, from James Gunn’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” films to Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” and Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” saga: The best way to make any franchise a must-see film is to give it to a filmmaker with a unique style and vision.
Between the poorly received “Alien vs. Predator” crossover films in the 2000s, the so-so performance of “Predators” in 2010 and the lackluster returns of “The Predator” in 2018, this was a franchise that seemed to have run its course.
But Disney’s move to hand the franchise to Trachtenberg led to three films that have restored fan goodwill through successful experimentation with the franchise formula. Now, with “Badlands” as the first theatrical release of Trachtenberg’s trio of films so far, this weekend has shown that there’s still potential for “Predator” to be theatrically viable.
The generation gap
That said, there’s still a scenario in the weeks ahead where competition from films like “The Running Man” and “Wicked: For Good” stunts the ability of “Predator: Badlands” to get more casual moviegoers off the fence and give it a try. While it has done better than recent well-received misfires like “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” and “Transformers One,” “Badlands” could see a significant drop off if a majority of its remaining potential audience simply decides it’s skippable.
That is why it is so essential for Disney’s future “Predator” plans that “Badlands” bring in the under-25 crowd that made up a minority of its opening weekend audience.
In 2022, Paramount and Spyglass’ revival of the Gen X horror staple “Scream” ended up becoming a hit not from nostalgic ’90s teens but from the teens of today, with 67% of moviegoers under the age of 35. A sixth installment was released the following year, and a seventh is coming this February.
Can “Badlands” convert today’s youth to the “Predator” fandom? Exhibitor Relations analyst Jeff Bock is skeptical, at least in the short term. He believes that “Badlands” could build the “Predator” fanbase once it gets a release on Hulu or Disney+, but thinks that “Running Man” will trip up the film theatrically in the weeks ahead.
“The younger generation knows Glen Powell more than they know ‘Predator.’ They might be more interested in seeing him than anything ‘Badlands’ can offer,” he said.
But there are a couple of signs in the audience data that might suggest “Badlands” is gaining a foothold. On opening day Friday, 6% of the audience was family audiences, to be expected as hardcore fans fill up those early screenings. But on Saturday, as social media buzz began to grow, the family audience share grew to 11%.
Granted, a slash-em-up PG-13 film is never going to have a huge family audience share. The families at play here are mostly those with teenage boys.
But those teenage boys who can’t go see “The Running Man” next weekend without their parents — theater sneak-ins notwithstanding — could become the “Predator” fans of the future that turn out for any future installments, whether they are direct sequels to “Badlands” or go some other creative route.
Even in the best-case scenario, “Predator: Badlands” won’t be a huge financial success for Disney. For the rest of its theatrical run, it will be an action-packed alternative to “Wicked: For Good” and Disney’s own “Zootopia 2,” much like Paramount’s “Gladiator II” was against the first “Wicked” and “Moana 2” last year. If it legs out, it might turn a slight theatrical profit; but most of its profit will come from post-theatrical streams, including boosting the library revenue for all the “Predator” films on Hulu and digital rental platforms.
But at a time when Disney is trying to figure out how to get the masses excited for Marvel, Pixar and “Star Wars,” “Predator” is one part of its IP stable where the core audience is largely happy about the current state of the series. While so many other franchises from Hollywood’s biggest and most scrutinized studio are tending to their wounds, the Yautja are hunting for a brighter future.
