Where Does Predator: Badlands Take Place On The Overall Timeline?

Director Dan Trachtenberg has continued to re-invent the "Predator" franchise with his latest feature effort, "Predator: Badlands." This is now his third entry in the series, following the 1700s set "Prey" and the all-over-the-place animated anthology "Predator: Killer of Killers." This time, he decided to take the greatest hunters in the universe and set them far in the future. But just how far in the future does the movie take place? Pretty far, it seems.

Trachtenberg recently spoke with Variety and offered some clarification as to where "Badlands" falls on the overall "Predator" timeline. What slightly complicates matters is that this movie does take place in the same universe as the "Alien" movies, so there are two different continuities to take into account. Trachtenberg attempted to avoid any issues by just going further into the future than any of these movies have gone before. Here's what he had to say:

"Very intentionally, it is the furthest into the future in both 'Predator' and 'Alien.' When we were making it, I wasn't really sure what was going on with 'Alien: Romulus' and I don't even know how aware I even was of 'Alien: Earth.' So I just didn't want to step on anyone's toes. I wanted to make sure we were doing our own thing, and selfishly, I'd also done so much 'Predator' in different time periods that I was excited for this to be in the future, even past 'Alien: Resurrection.'"

In terms of the overall "Alien" franchise timeline, 1997's "Alien: Resurrection" takes place in 2381, more than 250 years after the original "Alien." While Trachtenberg didn't offer up a specific date, we're beyond or at least approaching the year 2400 in "Badlands." That opens up a whole host of additional questions.

Without getting into spoilers, "Badlands" brings the Weyland-Yutani corporation from the "Alien" movies into the fold, with Elle Fanning's android Thia hailing from said corporation. It's by no means a full-on "Alien vs. Predator" movie but it does fold these universes in on one another. So there is much to consider beyond the year that this movie takes place in.

For one, the "Alien: Resurrection" novelization and in some dialogue that was scrapped from the movie, it was revealed that Weyland-Yutani was actually purchased by Walmart. "Badlands" firmly establishes that the company still exists and is seemingly thriving. Is it that Disney and Trachtenberg consider the theatrical cut canon? Or did Weyland-Yutani resurrect itself as a separate entity following the events of "Resurrection" into something new?

Even setting that little nugget aside, what do we know of the "Alien" franchise at this point in time? Not a whole lot at the moment but Xenomorphs are surely still a thing. "Alien: Romulus" took place between the events of "Alien" and "Aliens," meaning it's unlikely that the forthcoming "Romulus" sequel will pick up where "Badlands" left off. But it also doesn't mean that the "Romulus" sequel can't cross over with "Predator" in its own way.

What we're left to question most is, where's this all headed? It's clear that Disney is building to some sort of larger "Alien"/"Predator" crossover of some sort. But what does that look like? Is it a future-set "AvP" movie? Is it something that will instead go back to the past at another point in the timeline? Assuming these movies continue to perform well at the box office, we'll undoubtedly get an answer. Trachtenberg and Co. just aren't prepared to show their hand yet.

"Predator: Badlands" is in theaters now.