“It’s like an R-rated Disney Princess film”: Prey Director Compares Predator Prequel to Family-Friendly Disney Tales – With a Bit More Blood and Guts
The prequel to the Predator movies, Prey is a sci-fi action film released in 2022 on the streaming service Hulu. Set in the 1700s, the movie follows a young Comanche woman Naru who intends to prove herself as a hunter. In addition to protecting her people from an alien that kill humans as a sport, she has to safeguard the buffaloes on which they depend for survival.
Recently, Prey‘s director Dan Trachtenberg has revealed that the movie was conceived as something similar to a Disney movie. Trachtenberg views the movie as an impactful and empowering one. Even before Disney bought Fox, he had labeled it as a Disney movie.
Prey is A Positive and Family-Friendly Movie
Prey is the fifth movie in the mainline Predator series and the seventh one in the franchise as it stands as a prequel to the four films of the franchise. The franchise was initially produced by the 20th Century Fox studios, but the studios later merged with Disney. This, however, did not change with respect to this movie because Trachtenberg had always thought of Prey as a Disney movie. While talking on the Little Gold Men podcast, he said:
I’ve worked on big time travel movies and heist films, and those things can be so complicated. And this movie was so elemental at its core that even before Fox-Disney merger happened, I kept on saying it’s like an R-rated Disney princess film. It’s like a Pixar movie. Movies about dreamers and underdogs.
Trachtenberg also said that the cast, crew and movie studio were all aboard the idea of Prey being a special movie, one that is going to do good to humanity. It is a movie that tells “little girls, for older girls, for First Nations, any Indigenous person, people from any walk of life” that they are capable of doing more than they think they are. This notion that a movie about hunting and predators can be inspiring and positive kept the makers going.
Read More: Can Predator 5 Save A Franchise Which Is Turning Into A Failure?
Dan Trachtenberg Took a Risk with Prey
Dan Trachtenberg is known for pulling off unconventional stories and rightfully, succeeding in doing so. His debut feature film 10 Cloverfield Lane was a huge gamble, and it was certainly one that the filmmaker was willing to do. While discussing his films with studios, Trachtenberg makes it abundantly clear that “the safest thing is the riskiest thing”. He explained this theory using MCU’s Guardians of the Galaxy as an example. He said:
“This is ridiculous. A talking raccoon and no superhero to speak of, quote, unquote, and those aren’t the things that made the movie less good or more risky. Those are the things that made it more successful. Those were the things that widened the runway.”
Trachtenberg believes that such experimentation gives more people the chance to enjoy a movie rather than redundant themes. Given that Prey was released to rave reviews and critics called it the best movie of the Predator franchise, he seems to be right about taking risks as it has been working for him so far.
Prey is currently streaming on Hulu.
Source: Vanity Fair
