After 2018's disappointing reboot, the Predator franchise somewhat fell by the wayside. After a series of disappointing outings (and crossovers), fans started losing interest in the classic sci-fi alien, but Hulu's Prey puts a fresh on the formidable creature by shifting focus to The Comanche Nation.
The 1700s setting means we get to see the Predator's first visit to Earth, and the fact this movie is set hundreds of years before 1987's Predator means the alien has been somewhat redesigned.
Director Dan Trachtenberg recently explained that to us, but how did Prey stars Amber Midthunder and Dakota Beavers feel when they saw the Predator on set for the first time. Needless to say, it must have been a pretty surreal experience, but it's one neither actor will forget.
"I saw the Predator first, I think, by accident," Amber tells us in the video below. "I heard whispers of some sort of show and tell happening and saw people slowly disappearing so I was like, ‘Hmm, what’s going on over there?’ I snuck over, looked, and in the woods, I saw this creature and he was moving, you know, the head and mouth. I went, ‘I could take him.’"
"That was what I said. That was my instinct. For some reason, I thought ‘Oh, I could fight that.’ It was far less intimidating than I imagined and then," she continued, "immediately, after my Naru brain, I went back to my brain and was like, ‘No, that’s wild! It’s a giant monster!’"
"It was very cool to see, especially as so much of it is practical. It’s the suit and animatronic head that takes four people to run for just the face. Seeing that for the first time was wild."
As for Dakota, he also saw the Predator stalking the woods they were shooting in and admitted to being blown away by the experience. "The first time I saw him, he was walking through the trees in the suit. I was like, ‘Holy crap, that’s pretty cool.’ When Taabe sees the Predator for the first time, he says in Comanche, ‘That’s some crazy sh*t.’ It was similar for me!"
Both actors get to spend a fair bit of time with the iconic alien in Prey, and while we won't go into details about what that entails, let's just say they do more than look at the unstoppable beast. You can hear much more from them about their experience working on the reboot in our interviews below.
Prey premieres exclusively on Hulu on August 5!