Dan Trachtenberg’s next science-fiction adventure is around the corner with Predator: Badlands, but he has confirmed that he also missed out on directing an episode of another pop culture behemoth this year: Stranger Things Season 5.
The news was so concrete in fact, that Netflix even announced Trachtenberg’s involvement with the final season of the fan-favorite show way back in June 2023. That was only a year after Prey, his first Predator movie, wowed audiences when it debuted on Hulu.
Trachtenberg’s work on Prey and the animated movie, Predator: Killer of Killers, has impressed fans of the iconic monster, which is why Predator: Badlands is one of the most anticipated movies of the year.
Because Trachtenberg was announced for Stranger Things Season 5, Dexerto spoke to him about working with the Duffer brothers after spotting their names in the credits for Predator: Badlands.
Dan Trachtenberg was supposed to direct the third episode of Stranger Things Season 5
Because Stranger Things Season 5 is the giant blockbuster ending to the Hawkins story, it makes sense why Netflix and the Duffer brothers wanted to get Trachtenberg onboard for the series.
But when asked about the Duffers involvement with Predator: Badlands, Trachtenberg explained that their voice cameo as the Yautja ship was a fun way of still getting to work together.
“So I was actually supposed to do an episode of Stranger Things, the third episode, and had started work on it and then this movie got greenlit.
“So it was Killer of Killers and this, like it was a chance where maybe I could squeeze that in and then go off to New Zealand and do this. But with the two things happening at the same time, I could not so I had to bow out.”
“I just thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to have you guys cameo on the movie?’ And they were super awesome about it, very much, like, nervous about not being performers,” He continued.
“I was like, ‘It’s okay, we’re gonna make it sound like a computer’ and they literally got the Duffers to speak in Yautja. It was so fun.”
It’ll be interesting to see what happens in the third episode of Stranger Things Season 5 to see whether Trachtenberg’s experience with horror, monsters, and practical effects would’ve been particularly useful in the fight against Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower).
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