Predator: Badlands is officially rated PG-13
In February of 2024, it was announced that Prey director Dan Trachtenberg would become the first filmmaker to take the helm of two films in the Predator franchise, as he was moving ahead with a new Predator film titled Badlands, working from a screenplay by Prey screenwriter Patrick Aison (based on a story crafted by Trachtenberg himself). Then we found out that while Trachtenberg was making the live-action Predator: Badlands, he was also working on an animated anthology movie called Predator: Killer of Killers, which he wrote with Micho Robert Rutare and directed with Josh Wassung of the animation company The Third Floor. So he has actually made three Predator movies. Predator: Killer of Killers was released through the Hulu streaming service earlier this year and Predator: Badlands is heading for a November 7, 2025 theatrical release. Recently, there have been rumblings that the new movie might end up being rated PG-13 – and now, it’s official. The Motion Picture Association ratings board has revealed that Predator: Badlands is rated PG-13 for sequences of strong sci-fi violence.
According to a casting call, Predator: Badlands had the following description: A groundbreaking film in which one of the two main storylines delves into the intricate bond of two very different sisters, their familial ties are put to the ultimate test as they pursue divergent paths and missions. We’ve previously heard that the story is set sometime in the future. The casting call was searching for a lead actress who could take on the dual role of twin sisters Thia and Tessa: This casting is for a dual character, and describes both characters. Character identifies as female or non-binary, open ethnicity, mid 20s – mid 40s. Thia has spent most of her life in a laboratory and is now embarking on her first big adventure in the world. She is incredibly smart, witty, enthusiastic, and unflappable. She has an innate disregard for danger, not because she’s fearless, but simply because she’s naive. Strong comedy chops required. // The other sister, Tessa, has a militant intensity when it comes to achieving her family’s goals and mission objectives. She will not let anything get in her way, not even her twin sister. These are the roles Elle Fanning is playing, and at least one of her characters (Thia) has the Weyland-Yutani logo printed on her eyeballs.
The official synopsis tells us the film is set in the future on a remote planet, where a young Predator, outcast from his clan, finds an unlikely ally in Thia (Fanning) and embarks on a treacherous journey in search of the ultimate adversary. The film is produced by John Davis, Dan Trachtenberg, Marc Toberoff, Ben Rosenblatt, and Brent O’Connor. The lead Predator is played by Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi.
Rosenblatt gave us the heads-up on the possibility of a PG-13 rating around two weeks ago. He told IGN the movie could scrape by with a PG-13 because “We don’t have any humans in the movie and so we don’t have any human red blood. So we’re hoping that’s gonna play to our advantage. We’re going to go as hard as we possibly can within those constraints, and we think we’ll be able to do some pretty awesomely gruesome stuff. But in colors other than red.” So if the action in the movie is entirely creature-on-creature (or creature-on-synthetic), with no humans around to get messed up in the violent scenes (or to drop any “strong language”), the ratings board deciding to give it a PG-13 does make sense.
What do you think of Predator: Badlands being rated PG-13? Do you think it makes sense for the story being told here, or do you think the filmmakers should have pushed it into R territory even without human characters? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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