News Predator: Badlands Predator: Badlands‘ Director Explains Why He Decided Not to Put Amber Midthunder in the Movie Don’t worry, there’s a plan for Naru. By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on November 6, 2025 Courtesy of 20th Century Studios Comment 0 Share New Share Courtesy of 20th Century Studios Dan Trachtenberg’s latest movie, Predator: Badlands sees a young Predator named Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) as the protagonist on a planet where everything wants to kill him. His companion is the top half of an android named Thia (Elle Fanning), whose maker is a direct reference to the Alien franchise. And while the trailers show some other humanoid folks, it appears that Trachtenberg’s previous statement that Badlands takes place in the future and there are no humans in the movie seems essentially true. That hasn’t stopped speculation, however, that Prey star Amber Midthunder, who played Naru in that film, may appear in Badlands. This speculation is supported by the fact we see Naru in stasis in Trachtenberg’s other Predator film this year, the animated Killer of Killers, but in a recent interview with Dexerto, Trachtenberg confirms that Midthunder is not in Badlands, but that he has plans for the character. “There’s a bigger plan down the line,” the writer-director said. “I did think about the pairing, before it was Thia, but then I thought, ‘Well, now then, I’m not doing the premise.’ And I really wanted to do the premise, that Predator’s the protagonist and [there’s] no humans in the movie. And so it became… further down the line that we can do some cool things, maybe.” It seems extremely likely that we won’t see Midthunder in Predator: Badlands when it premieres in theaters on November 7, 2025. It does sound, however, like the odds are good we’ll see her as Naru again sometime in the future. [end-mark] The post <i>Predator: Badlands</i>‘ Director Explains Why He Decided Not to Put Amber Midthunder in the Movie appeared first on Reactor.