20th Century Studios’ Predator: Badlands is now the highest-grossing movie of the 38-year old franchise at $180M, surpassing this weekend the reported global box office of the series’ previous champ, 2004’s Alien vs. Predator ($177.4M).
Now, listen up, the reason why we’re declaring this now is due to the Danny Trachtenberg-directed sequel officially eclipsing AVP in its reported gross. That’s the way the average Joe will assess and see the film when they look it up. Realize that Disney called Predator: Badlands as the highest grossing in franchise back on November 23 (Deadline’s Nancy Tartaglione did report this), using a likes-for-likes foreign currency comparison versus the original. Understand, that’s how global box office is assessed: like-for-like comparisons. On that Sunday, Predator: Badlands hit $159.6M, which was ahead of AVP‘s adjusted global final of $150.3M.
The seventh Predator movie opened to $80M global ($40M domestic) during the first weekend in November, the best opening in the franchise. The start repped a pickup at the fall box office after an awful October. We had reported last weekend that Badlands on a domestic basis was tops in the franchise at $85M, besting AVP‘s $80.2M final. AVP‘s foreign reported final is $97.1M, while Badlands is around $92M.
Top-grossing foreign territories for Predator: Badlands are China ($15.1M), UK ($7M), Mexico ($5.7M), France ($5M) and Japan ($4.3M).
Trachtenberg has reinvigorated the Predator franchise, which began in 1987 with Arnold Schwarzenegger starring and John McTiernan directing. At the time, the pic repped a high for Schwarzenegger in his career, hitting $59.7M at the summer domestic box office. Trachtenberg made the Predator movie Prey for Hulu, which dropped during Covid. The chorus was that the movie was so great (94% critics, 74% audience) that it should have played theaters. Hence, Badlands going theatrical. There’s also a spinoff Hulu animated series Predator: Killer of Killers.
Predator: Badlands also received the franchise’s best CinemaScore ever with an A-. The unique take this time: The Predator is now the protagonist, the hunted one on a fierce planet. He is played by Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, and he gets help from a broken android played by Elle Fanning.
The only thing about Badlands, and this is because it’s sci-fi: it cost a lot, at $105M before P&A. Several sources have told us that Alien vs. Predator, propped by the early-millennium DVD era and a $65M production cost, is one of 20th Century Fox’s most profitable movies ever.