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 When Predator: Badlands comes to theaters this fall, new franchise lead Dan Trachtenberg will have a couple of people to thank. There are all the Predator greats that’ve come before, of course, and he’ll be tipping his hat to Alien’s Weyland-Yutani for their android loan. But one grotesque gaggle the director will presumably give his gratitude to aren’t monsters at all - well, not the intergalactic kind, anyway.

Those will be The Boys, stars of the Amazon series of the same name.

You may not know this, but it was Prey and Killer of Killer director Dan Trachtenberg that actually directed the pilot episode of The Boys for Amazon Prime all the way back in 2019. Recently, Trachtenberg sat down with MovieWeb to discuss his experience on the show and, more importantly, how it affected his tenure as current head of the Predator franchise.

“I wished I could have come back for that,” Trachtenberg said of The Boys final season, which is expected to air in 2026, “It would have been a lovely little bookend. But obviously I was, you know, making these two movies and could not, but I had such an incredible experience [...] And certainly, my first stepping stone into doing the pilot for The Boys, embracing the more visceral qualities of film and making something that is incredibly ultraviolent, but that also is thematically oriented and a little bit of fun and funny as well... that certainly helped sharpen my tools for the stuff that we're getting into now, with all things Predator.”

“Visceral qualities of film,” eh? You can say that again, and you’d be right to say it speaks to both franchises. Still, I don’t think we’ll get a Herogasm equivalent of the Predator franchise. But hey, who knows?

Prey and Predator: Killer of Killers are streaming on Hulu now. Predator: Badlands comes to theaters November 7. The Boys is streaming on Prime Video 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.