'Prey' director promises 'different breed' of Predator, 'God of War' inspirations in new film

The Predator is one of the all-time great sci-fi movie creatures, a being that doesn't just want to kill you or fight to survive, but to stalk and hunt its prey with deliberate, calculated moves. That pattern of behavior makes the creature inherently scary, and it's been fun to see all the different ways various storytellers have played with that modus operandi over the years. 

Prey, the new Predator prequel film from 10 Cloverfield Lane director Dan Trachtenberg, will of course offer its own variations on the Predator mythos, and not just when it comes to the time period. Prey is set 300 years before the events of the first Predator film, and follows a Comanche warrior named Nadu (Amber Midthunder) as she and her people fight to survive when they realize the creature is stalking them across their North American homeland. As with every new Predator film, the new setup offers a number of new ways to frame the conflict, and with Prey, Trachtenberg wanted to change a few of the combat mechanics to his advantage, beginning with some ideas drawn, believe it or not, from the video game series God of War. 

"I teased a while ago that I took inspiration from the latest God of War video game, and those two things are in the trailer," Trachtenberg told Comic Book. "One is his shield, that you see briefly. And the other is not a Predator gadget, but just the way that Nadu wields her axe, she invents something very cool for that Tomahawk. And that comes from a mechanic in that video game. I think the shield is something super cool. There's a couple things that are the same, but even those things function slightly differently."

In the trailer below, you can indeed see Nadu tethering her tomahawk to her body with a rope, allowing her to pull it back and catch it after she throws it, which is a very cool idea for this film indeed. 

As for the creature itself, Trachtenberg noted that, while we're still dealing with the familiar Predator species we've seen in the other films, the Predator in Prey offers certain variations on the theme, suggesting larger variations within the Predators as a whole. 

"I think our Predator in my mind, not only does he exist, you know, 300 years before, but I think in sci-fi movie terms, time moves very slowly," Trachtenberg said. "If the way that Star Wars functions or even Star Trek, you know, it's like 300 years. Ships aren't suddenly like so different. But I think this guy's perhaps from a different hemisphere of the planet and a little bit of a different breed. So even his look is a little new, it's familiar, but new. So I'm excited for people, even for diehard fans, to really see something they hadn't seen before."

Prey arrives on Hulu, with a different breed of Predator in tow, on August 5. 

Looking for more action in the meantime? The thriller Ambulance is streaming now on Peacock, along with the new Viking epic The Northman.