Time to polish off your trophy skulls: the Predator is back. A new Predator movie is in the works at 20th Century Studios, with 10 Cloverfield Lane director Dan Trachtenberg set to direct a script from Patrick Aison. The film’s plot is under wraps, but it apparently won’t have anything to do with The Predator, the 2018 sequel directed by Shane Black.

Deadline is reporting that Dan Trachtenberg will direct a new Predator movie, and the thing is, much like the Predator himself, it might have been hiding in plain sight this entire time. Back in 2019, word broke that Trachtenberg was going to direct a Patrick Aison script called Skulls, with the following logline: “Skulls will follow a Comanche woman who goes against gender norms and traditions to become a warrior.”

Now, this could all be a coincidence, and maybe Trachtenberg and Aison hit things off so well they decided to make a Predator movie instead. But skulls are a big part of Predator lore, as the alien trophy hunter has a habit of collecting the ripped-off noggins of his kills. So let’s just go ahead and assume that Skulls and this new Predator project are one and the same and that the folks behind the film were keeping the Predator connection on the down low. Until now.

This will be the fifth installment in the main Predator franchise, and the seventh if you want to throw in the Alien vs. Predator movies. The first was 1987’s Predator, directed by John McTiernan and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as the leader of an elite paramilitary rescue team being stalked in the jungles of Central America by an alien trophy hunter. The series continued with Predator 2, a weird but interesting Stephen Hopkins movie that took the alien character out of the jungle and set him loose in a city, with Danny Glover playing a cop on the creature’s trail. The main series remained quiet for a while and then picked up again in 2010 with Predators, which found a group of killers transported to an alien planet where they were hunted by a predators. In 2018 we got The Predator, directed by Shane Black, who had a role in the original film. Once again, it had a group of armed killers facing off against the alien beings.

Of all of these films, the first film is the frontrunner – it’s pretty damn great across the board. That said, the other sequels have their moments. I appreciate the departure of the second film; I like the concept of the third film; and while it’s messy as hell, I enjoyed the humor in The Predator. That said, I’m hopeful that this new installment will change things up a bit.

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