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“Predator: Killer of Killers” released on Hulu and Disney+ last Friday, and the animated anthology film concluded with a bit of a surprise. Co-director Dan Trachtenberg has since confirmed that this surprise could mean the long-awaited return of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Dutch to the “Predator” franchise.
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WARNING: Spoilers follow for “Predator: Killer of Killers”
“Predator: Killer of Killers” pits the infamous Yautja against Vikings, ninja, and World War II pilots in different historical times and settings. By the end of the film you learn the respective human heroes of each chapter have been stored cryogenically for a climactic battle with a Warlord Predator.
Before the credits roll, it’s revealed the Yautja have an entire storage facility filled with similar heroes who, presumably, also managed to defeat their hunters; more specifically we are shown that Amber Midthunder’s Naru, the hero of 2022’s “Prey”, is one of the Yautja’s frozen captives.
This opens up lots of possibilities for what other characters might be stored in the Predators’ cryogenic facility. Speaking with Polygon, Trachtenberg confirmed that Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Dutch could very well be one of the frozen prisoners.
“So the movie was made under the code name Warehouse, as that end moment was in the original idea pitch to the studio, and it felt like the end of ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’,” Trachtenberg said.
“Certainly Arnold, like many others, was a survivor of his story, and one could easily imagine him up there in cryo, along with any other Earth champion or champions from other planets.”
Of course, Schwarzenegger is now 77 and wouldn’t look anything like he did in 1987’s “Predator”, but with the franchise embracing animation in a big way, that might not be as much of a problem.
Trachtenberg confirmed to Polygon that he is hoping for a follow up to “Killer of Killers”.
“Yeah, certainly,” Trachtenberg said. “The cool [part] of this movie is that it opens up the door to tell these kinds of stories in different eras, in different places, in different planets — but also, the further adventures of these heroes that we bonded with in a very unique way.”
Along with offering a possible return to Schwarzenegger, the ending of “Killer of Killers” could potentially help to tie up one of the few dangling threads of the “Predator” franchise.
In 2010 “Predators” ended on a cliffhanger, with Adrien Brody and Alice Braga’s characters defeating the Yautja but trapped on an alien planet. Perhaps they could also be revealed to be on ice on the Yautja homeworld.
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