Predator: Badlands moves first in the latest installment and stands on ground shaped by a choice that pushes its timeline further into the future than any Alien film ever reached. You see, modern Hollywood leans hard on franchises, where studios link worlds and stretch every idea until a sequel appears.
Now, when a tale sits inside a world as large as Alien and Predator, the era it takes place in carries weight. Badlands does this in a quiet but important way through Weyland-Yutani, and director Dan Trachtenberg has cleared up exactly when the film sits inside the shared universe. His answer may not thrill those who want a long line of tie-ins, yet it serves the story well.
During an interview with Variety, Trachtenberg made the timeline clear. He explained that Badlands sits the furthest into the future in both Predator and Alien. He pushed it even farther, saying he was excited for it to be set past Alien: Resurrection, the film that takes place in 2381, about 250 years after Ridley Scott’s Alien, and Badlands moves beyond that point.
It lands somewhere around or after the 2400 mark. This choice adds weight to the appearance of Weyland-Yutani, which had been bought by Walmart by the time of Resurrection, as mentioned to Ripley 8. It also confirms that humanity still lives on Earth in this era, a detail that is not a break in continuity but feels surprising considering how long the species has endured.
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Avoiding Conflicts With Other Alien Projects
Trachtenberg had a practical reason for choosing such a distant setting. He explained that he was not sure what was happening with Alien: Romulus and had little awareness of Alien: Earth. So he kept Badlands away from other ongoing projects to avoid stepping on anyone’s toes. This distance has turned out to be the right move as a large part of the appeal of his Predator films lies in how they sit on their own, allowing the audience to follow the immediate story without hunting for links to other titles.
Moreover, he also had a creative motive. The future gave him space to do his own thing, which kept alive his pattern of placing Predator stories in different eras. Prey explored the early 18th Century within an indigenous tribe. Predator: Killer of Killers jumped across time through an anthological structure, from the Vikings to World War II. Badlands continues this approach, where each shift in time lets the Yautja face new environments, reveal new tools, and show fresh designs that match the age they enter.
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Future Story Possibilities Beyond Badlands
Even though Badlands could serve as the foundation for a new arc that frees both Alien and Predator from older story burdens, especially with Dek’s final line about his mother coming to visit him, Trachtenberg’s own reasoning suggests this remains distant. His focus on stand-alone periods and closed-off tales keeps Badlands grounded in its own lane. In the end, the future setting strengthens what the film aims to be.
