‘Predator: Killer of Killers’ Directors on the Anthology Format and Historical Accuracy [Interview]

Director Dan Trachtenberg (Prey) teams with co-director Joshua Wassung on a stunning animated anthology that expands the universe further by exploring the Yautjas’ pursuit of a worthy hunt across time in Predator: Killer of Killers, now streaming on Hulu.

The original animated action-adventure film follows three of the fiercest warriors in human history: a Viking raider guiding her young son on a bloody quest for revenge, a ninja in feudal Japan who turns against his Samurai brother in a brutal battle for succession, and a WWII pilot who takes to the sky to investigate an otherworldly threat to the Allied cause.

It’s a premise that suggests a straightforward triptych, but playing with the anthology format allowed for more surprises in Killer of Killers’ franchise expansion. Trachtenberg tells Bloody Disgusting that it was making three distinct tales into one cohesive whole that cracked this anthology open.

“That was really when this unlocked for me, and I was toiling over exactly what to do and what the take could be. Once we had that little nugget of like, ‘Oh, actually, we could be doing more.’ That the movie wouldn’t just be Twilight Zone as an anthology. That it would be Pulp Fiction as an anthology. That these stories could really be interwoven and build to something incredibly special.”

A scene still from 20th Century Studios’ PREDATOR: KILLER OF KILLERS, exclusively on Hulu. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Trachtenberg further explains, revealing a surprising source of inspiration in the process.

“So to be under a spoiler umbrella about the ending, if you want, the thing that I’ve always been chasing was a feeling I had watching Best In Show, the Christopher Guest movie. Normally, when you’re watching a contest movie or a sports film, you’ve got one character that you’re rooting for and hoping for them to win. Something crazy happened as a byproduct of just the nature of that movie that you’ve connected with all of these people. You weren’t thinking about who’s going to have to win the competition. You were just enjoying them, and all of a sudden, the competition builds to a climax. It’s like I’ve never had more stakes for the winner of a contest because I’ve really connected to the characters equally. That was what I knew would be so special about this structure. So, that was a huge piece of figuring out the movie was the format.”

Though Predator: Killer of Killers does tie each distinct story together eventually, each of the three stands apart with its own style, cadence, and action matching the era. Each brings a cultural specificity, too, bringing depth and pathos to the protagonists featured in each. 

A scene still from 20th Century Studios’ PREDATOR: KILLER OF KILLERS, exclusively on Hulu. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

“I credit Amy Carter,” Wassung says. “She is one of our production designers. She has this special superpower that she can just really drill down on historical cultures. She came from that background. She was a researcher on Lincoln and many other films. She grew up through art, and her dad was a production designer. She was just so great at finding these pieces of history and these photos from this museum or this book or whatever, and she would coalesce them in a way that was very authentic. Then, 20th was able to bring in professional cultural advisors.”

That extended to the action itself; Wassung explains, “There was just a lot of input even down to we had stunt consultants, some of whom were trained in really advanced Sword Mastery, and they were able to video for us little tutorials on how to properly hold a sword, what is the proper form for a situation, and we were able to give that to every animator on the project. So they got this tutorial on how to be a proper samurai and how you hold and what you do. It was just so many elements that went into it, but it was a very high priority for us all.”

Read Bloody Disgusting’s review of Predator: Killer of Killers.

The post ‘Predator: Killer of Killers’ Directors on the Anthology Format and Historical Accuracy [Interview] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.