The Predators are back! The legendary alien hunters made famous by the original 1987 movie are once again gracing the silver screen with a new hunt. And what's even more impressive is that the new batch may have led the franchise to its biggest success story. Yep, we're looking at you Predator: Badlands!
Dan Trachtenberg returns to the director's chair for the beloved franchise after previously bringing 2022's Prey and 2025's animated movie Predator: Killer of Killers to life. All three are relatively standalone features, perhaps working towards the some major endgame of in the distance and yet functioning perfectly fine on their own. And Badlands has made a name for itself even among that esteemed company, earning a whopping $80 million in its opening weekend at the box office.
But there are, understandably, a number of people who were expecting it to debut on Disney Plus and / or Hulu like the two previous Predator movies. That's not the case, as this one was particularly selected for a theatrical release, but that doesn't mean it won't find its way to those platforms either. Here's when you can expect that.
Predator: Badlands will likely make its streaming debut early next year (but there will be other ways to watch before that)
Predator: Badlands was produced by 20th Century Studios, which is overseen by Disney. Now, Disney has a fairly easy to predict release pattern when it comes to timeframe for streaming releases after their theatrical debuts. It's normally much longer for Marvel Studios movies, and that can can those particular predictions a little trickier, but for general releases, the streaming debut normally comes around four months after it premiered in theaters.
Taking that into account, fans can likely expect Predator: Badlands to make its streaming debut in the US on Hulu (or via Disney Plus with the bundle) and Disney Plus for the rest of the world around February or March 2026. The studio will obviously announce it closer to the time, but it's worth making a mental note of that as you anticipated watching it from home.
If you simply can't wait that long, there will be other ways to watch it before that. Disney often makes its releases available on digital PVOD around two months after the theatrical debut. Taking that into account, we can probably anticipate Predator: Badlands' digital release to come in January 2026.
If you would prefer to own the movie on physical media, you should note that these releases usually comes between the digital and streaming releases. With that in mind, you can expect to own Predator: Badlands on DVD, Blu-Ray, and 4K UHD around February or March 2026. Granted, 20th Century Studios' physical release of Alien: Romulus came after its streaming debut, so there is always a chance that this will happen again, but the vast majority of Disney's big-budget releases have mirrored the above timeline.
Why Predator: Badlands was released in theaters instead of streaming
Predator: Badlands is the third Predator movie from director Dan Trachtenberg after 2022's Prey and 2025's Killer of Killers, but it's the first of his to go back to movie theaters. That also means that it's the first movie in the franchise to arrive on the silver screen since 2018's The Predator (which came after a similar lengthy wait after 2010's Predators). It wasn't clear how the movie was going to do as the Predator films have struggled at the box office in recent decades due to both franchise age and their excessively large budgets, but Badlands was the one Trachtenberg, Disney, and 20th Century Studios wanted to take the risk on.
Predator prequel Prey went straight to Hulu (and Disney Plus worldwide) in 2022 and it very quickly became a major success for the platform, setting the record as its most-watched movie or TV series premiere of all time within its first three days. That, and the critical acclaim that it earned, highlighted a huge comeback for the Predator franchise - which is exactly the opposite of the picture that The Predator's theatrical release painted in 2018. With Prey's smaller budget of $65 million, it likely would have been a huge success had it been released in theaters, too.
And with that, the decision was made to take the gamble with Badlands. It's a much more expansive and vivid movie due to its space-setting (not-to-mention the visuals of the planet Genna), so it was clear that the action-adventure flick would look great on the big screen. To say that they pulled it off would be an understatement.
With Badlands now overperforming at the box office - something that it needed to do due to its larger budget - it's clear that they made the right decision. And with 20th Century also producing successful Alien movies for the theaters (as well as the Alien: Earth TV series for Hulu / Disney Plus) and the potential of some crossovers further down the line, we may be about to get a new shared universe of aliens on the silver screen in the near future. How exciting would that be!