One of the biggest question marks in Disney’s acquisition of all things Fox (sans Fox News) was how they’d handle horror and R-rated movies. In the past, they haven’t been too kind to our genre, even hiding behind the distribution wall of companies like Hollywood Pictures. This time around, they appear to be allowing the various brands to continue moving forward with their visions, especially Searchlight Pictures who was behind Ready or Not, the forthcoming Antlers, and the newly announced Alex Aja horror project Elijah.

However, the biggest signal was this past Friday’s leaked news that 10 Cloverfield Lane‘s Dan Trachtenberg was hired to write and direct the next installment in the Predator franchise. This was huge news being that Shane Black’s The Predator (2018), as good as it was, underperformed behind an excruciating budget. It appeared, for the time being, that the franchise was all but dead.

Digressing, while we hope this also means a new Alien is quietly in the works, Trachtenberg popped onto Twitter with an interesting bomb over the weekend.

“This was meant to be a surprise,” he tweeted. “Been working on this for almost 4 years now. I am very sad that what we had in store for how you could discover this movie will no longer happen. It’s a bummer. But also…YAY!”

First, it’s interesting that he’s been working on this for four years and it’s not connected to Shane Black’s The Predator, which was released just two years ago. Also, I love that there were plans to surprise fans in the same way Paramount did with Trachtenberg’s 10 Cloverfield Lane.

With all that said, several readers contacted me over the weekend to point out that Trachtenberg had previously been announced to be working on a film called Skulls, which seems like an appropriate title considering the trophies Predators collect.

Digging in even deeper, Skulls was not only announced to be penned by Patrick Aison for 20th Century Studios and Disney, but also hailed from Predator series producer John Davis! Coincidence? I think not.

Here’s the logline: “Skulls will follow a Comanche woman who goes against gender norms and traditions to become a warrior.”

If you want to reflect that against the Predator series, the late Sonny Landham, who Variety wrote in their obituary was part Seminole and part Cherokee, was best known for portraying Native American tracker Billy Sole in the Arnold Schwarzenegger-starrer Predator in 1987. I’d love to think there’s a connection here…

No matter, it sounds like Trachtenberg’s project is still heavily in the works and, while no longer a surprise, is being backed heavily by Fox’s parent company, Walt Disney.

What do you want to see out of the next Predator?