Dan Trachtenberg, the visionary director of Predator: Badlands, has signed a big three-year first-look deal with Paramount Pictures. With this deal, he can direct, produce, and work on new projects with his partner Ben Rosenblatt.
The multi-year deal is based on Trachtenberg’s success with Paramount on 10 Cloverfield Lane in 2016. Trachtenberg said it was a “dream come true” because he wanted to write big stories under the famous studio logo. Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg, co-chairs of Paramount, praised his “rare instinct for tension, scale, and storytelling” that keeps audiences around the world interested.
Predator: Badlands came out in November 2025 and made $184.5 million worldwide, breaking the franchise record set by Alien vs. Predator in 2004 ($177.4 million). Elle Fanning plays the synthetics Thia and Tessa, and Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi plays the outcast Predator Dek in the sci-fi hit set on the futuristic planet Genna. It comes after Trachtenberg’s Prey (2022) and Hulu’s Predator: Killer of Killers (June 2025).
Trachtenberg will now be in charge of making movies for Paramount, going beyond the Predator universe that he brought back to life. The studio expects the Emmy-nominated director to make bold content that will connect with audiences.
