Predator: Killer of Killers co-director Joshua Wassung commented on all those fan theories about that Alien Easter egg that everyone thinks they spotted in the first trailer for the film. In the footage, fans were confident that they saw a Predator at the end of the teaser wearing a cape made of Xenomorph tails.
Predator: Killer of Killers, the first animated installment in the Predator franchise, follows an anthology format that tells the tale of three characters from three eras: a Viking, a Ninja, and a World War ll fighter pilot. Throughout history, each of them encounters a different Predator that they must defeat in order to live and fight another day. Starring in the film, which releases on Hulu on Friday, June 6, 2025, are Lauren Holt (Freya), Louis Ozawa (Kenji/Kiyoshi), Rick Gonzalez (Torres), and Michael Biehn (Vandy).
The Direct spoke with Predator: Killer of Killers co-director Joshua Wassung (who directed alongside Prey's Dan Trachtenberg) in an exclusive interview. In it, he touched on that possible Alien Easter egg and explained how they chose the movie's three main characters.
Predator: Killer of Killers Josh Wassung on if Fans Did See an Alien Easter Egg
"We Designed That Character to Be as Regal as Possible..."
- The Direct: "There are a lot of fan theories going around about the very threatening-looking Predator seen from the back in the trailer, and fans were convinced that his cape was a bunch of Xenomorph tails. So I was wondering if you could possibly confirm that to be the case or not the case?"
Joshua Wassung: Well, I will say that we designed that character to be as regal as possible, mixed with the most brutality you could imagine. So, you know, the design originally came from Alex Gillis but also from a bunch of really incredibly talented artists and the art department...
But we really wanted the fans to decide where each of those crazy skeletons came from. We figured there are all kinds of fun possibilities, because it's not just one, there are a lot of them. So that's where I believe it really is up to the fans and to kind of put the history into this character.
Why Predator: Killer of Killers Chose To Focus on Vikings, Ninja, & WWII
The Team Wanted to Utilize the Unexpected Throughout History
- The Direct: "The film mainly tells a story between three different time periods. Can you just talk about why you chose each one of those and how they kind of specifically added their own unique additions to the story and the themes that you were going for?"
Joshua Wassung: Well, each of these was something really inspired by Dan [Trachtenberg], and he wanted—he loves to make things that are unexpected... So I think each one of them, no matter what the possibilities were, you had to have an interesting way in to make it something that's a character that's a little bit unexpected in a way that makes you care for them, and then kind of a little bit of a surprising way.
The first of the three characters focused on throughout the film is a Viking duo, a mother and son, whose search for vengeance ends up putting them right into the Predator's path:
Wassung: Viking is an awesome culture that is brutal, so that's cool, but like, what's the interesting way in?... Making that a mother-son story, you know, maybe we've seen mother-son stories, but have we seen that mother-son story in this setting, in this way, and facing a predator?
After the Viking story, the narrative shifts to 1600s Japan, where audiences meet two brothers (one a ninja and the other a Samurai) who have a cataclysmic break from one another at a young age. Years later, they reunited under tense circumstances, not knowing the monster that would shortly follow:
Wassung: Having these two brothers, and kind of surprising to start, you know, even though it's a accelerated timeline anthology, starting with them at a young age, and seeing where their their journey takes them, that was really an interesting and exciting and really that one came down to, how can we take two brothers and get them down the path of ninjas and samurai, because, come on, we want it, right?
The last of the three characters featured is a World War II fighter pilot forced to confront the Predator in an unexpected location: the skies:
Wassung: And then really, World War II was just like, that was like, the one where like, Oh, what if the Predator was in the sky? What if the spaceship actually kind of embodied what the original predator was? And that's where you see these weapons that harken back to the original one.
The full spoiler-free portion of the interview can be seen below:
Check out more of The Direct's interviews here.
