Prey Director Explains Why A Treetop Action Sequence Ended Up As A Deleted Scene [Exclusive]
In 2022, "Prey" rejuvenated the long-suffering Predator franchise, becoming the best-reviewed in the series since the original all the way back in 1987. Set in the Comanche Nation around 300 years prior to the first "Predator," the film follows Naru (Amber Midthunder) as she battles a Yautja in the forests of the Great Plains in which she was raised. And frankly, it made for one hell of a hunter vs. hunter showdown.
Following decades of lackluster and often abject "Predator" movies, director Dan Trachtenberg delivered a fresh take on the source material with "Prey." This time, the technically advanced extraterrestrial faced off against a warrior armed merely with a hatchet and a comprehensive knowledge of her homeland's topography. Its tense action and visceral tone made the film a hit when it debuted on Hulu. But there was one action sequence that, as Trachtenberg told /Film at the time, never made it into the final cut.
Intended to appear just prior to the final fight in "Prey," the sequence would have seen Naru chased through the treetops by her alien adversary. Now, the film has been given a physical release complete with bonus features that include the scene in question (in pre-viz form). Naturally, we had to catch up with Trachtenberg about the new release and the inclusion of the deleted scene.
Too Tarzan?
In a new interview with /Film's Ethan Anderton, Dan Trachtenberg explained why the treetop chase was cut and how he used a trick of the directing trade in the process of losing it. Even in pre-viz from, the sequence is legitimately tense — helped along by the pulsing score that accompanies it. Rendered in the Maya 3D software, it's a crude but effective representation of what Trachtenberg and co. had in mind, with Naru leaping between branches and looking back to see the Predator in pursuit. She then turns and whips the alien's cut-clamp weapon back at him. What follows is a misdirect, as the clamp looks to be heading for the Predator's leg, only to miss it before hitting a branch and taking down the alien. Exciting stuff! Except, as Trachtenberg explained, it wasn't entirely necessary.
In a commentary for the deleted scene, the director recounted how he and his team actually started building the soundstages and working on the stunt choreography for the sequence before it was dropped. Now, in his /Film interview, Trachtenberg has elaborated sequence of events that led up to it being cut:
"I love the idea of seeing [Naru] running through the tree and the predator up there because he's up in the tree so often in these films. And putting her up there too, it could have been really fun. But I was also incredibly nervous that it ended up looking like Tarzan ... Or just the execution had to be perfect for it to be great. And then, it was also becoming very costly to do and time-consuming."
Trachtenberg went on to explain how, rather than just scrapping the scene altogether, he held it in his back pocket as somewhat of a bargaining chip.
'Listen to your gut'
Dan Trachtenberg recounted to /Film how, after filming "Prey" for some time, he found himself in conversation with the film's producers, discussing costs and scheduling. At that moment, the filmmaker decided to take a tactical approach to addressing their concerns. He continued:
"I sort of waited until the things that were also critical were getting impacted. I said, 'You know what? What if we lost the thing? What if I took out that whole sequence? Then we could do this other ... Surely, you can't tell me that we can't.' But in the back of my mind, it was like, 'Okay, Dan. You're nervous about it already. Listen to your gut. It might not be great.'"
Despite being quite sanguine about losing the treetop chase, Trachtenberg was particularly disappointed to lose the misdirect portion. As he told /Film:
"The thing that I was the saddest to lose was there's a really, I thought, clever use of the cut clamp, one of the Predator's weapons that Naru has in the sequence. And so now, I'm glad that people can kind of see what it was."
Still, it's not as though "Prey" suffered from losing this sequence. The movie fared well enough to get a physical release, after all. And, as Trachtenberg says in the commentary track, he and his crew "ran out of the time and money to really put effort into making this what it's meant to be." So, even if they had pushed ahead with making the chase scene, we may well have seen it or other elements of the film suffer. Thankfully, that wasn't the case.