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Teamwork makes the scream work.

Dan Trachtenberg's third entry into the Predator franchise, the just released Predator: Badlands, has officially earned the top spot of biggest opening box office of the series. According to Variety, the Elle Fanning and Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi-starring action thriller raked in an impressive $40M in its domestic debut. And while there are plenty of reasons why this very well could be - a first-time Predator protagonist, for example- we'd like to suggest it's all about the heart of the movie.

That is, friendship.

In case you don't know, the heart of Badlands is the survival story between Predator Dek (Schuster-Koloamatangi) and android Thia, a relationship that director Trachtenberg has described as "like Chewbacca and C-3PO: The Movie." Badlands follows their attempt to survive the harsh landscape of a planet called Genna, where the young Yautja and Weyland-Yutani android (yep, from the Alien franchise) will have to rely on each other to not die horribly.

Fascinatingly, Badlands' story of friendship against all odds is a kind of refutation of the longstanding rivalry between their two franchises. Previously, the highest-earning Predator box office weekend was in 2004, when audiences flocked to theaters to see the Yautja take on the sinister Xenomorph in Alien vs. Predator. The widely-panned and technically non-canon monster mash earned $38M, and was in the No. 1 spot for Predator opening weekends until just this month. 

We choose to look at this as a win for not just Trachtenberg and Co., but for the spirit of unity. I mean, who knew that, after fans were demanding a conflict between the two franchises for so long, the biggest Predator moneymaker would come from a partnrship?

Predator: Badlands is in theaters now. 

The two greatest sci-fi monsters of all time are crash-landing in the heart of pop culture once again, and Popverse is here to tell you how to survive. Explore the interconnected Alien and Predator universe with:

• Popverse's Alien watch order
• Popverse's Predator watch order
• Popverse's Alien timeline
  

...and more. Keep your eyes peeled and remember, if anybody can hear you scream in space, it's us.