Predator: Badlands

All The Changes Made To Predator: Badlands' Kalisk Explained By VFX Team

Dek facing down the Kalisk in a foggy setting in Predator: BadlandsCourtesy Of Weta FX

By Grant Hermanns Published 49 minutes ago Grant Hermanns is a TV News Editor, Interview Host and Reviewer for ScreenRant, having joined the team in early 2021. He got his start in the industry with Moviepilot, followed by working at ComingSoon.net. When not indulging in his love of film/TV, Grant is making his way through his gaming backlog and exploring the world of Dungeons & Dragons with friends. Sign in to your ScreenRant account Summary Generate a summary of this story follow Follow followed Followed Like Like Thread Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap

Warning: Some SPOILERS lie ahead for Predator: Badlands!The Yautja have found themselves on the opposite side of the food chain with Predator: Badlands' Kalisk, which the team at Weta FX reveal underwent some major changes through the production process. Helmed by Prey and Killer of Killers' Dan Trachtenberg, the movie revolves around Dek, a young Yautja shunned by his tribe and nearly killed by his father, venturing to the dangerous planet of Genna to bring back a trophy that would earn him respect.

The trophy he elects to target on Genna is that of Kalisk, a creature deemed unkillable even by the Yautja, and who rules as an apex predator on the planet. Across Predator: Badlands' 107-minute runtime, Dek faces off against the Kalisk a few times, with the creature revealed to have regenerative abilities and incredible strength. Through his journey with a native creature, named Bud by Elle Fanning's Thia, Dek comes to have a respect for the creature, attempting to free it from Weyland-Yutani imprisonment in the movie's ending.

In an interview with ScreenRant's Grant Hermanns to discuss their work on the film, VFX Supervisor Sheldon Stopsack and Animation Supervisor Karl Rapley revealed just how the Kalisk came to be in Predator: Badlands. The latter began by recalling the "massive evolutionary process" the creature took all the way from the design and concept phase to "what you actually see on screen."

From the animation side of the process, Rapley revealed that the Kalisk "had all these abilities pitched that you never saw onscreen", with Trachtenberg having endless ideas for the creature, only to realize when it came time to put the sequences together, ""we didn't have time to explain certain things," while others "were not going to quite fit the story." As such, the Weta FX group "had to whittle these things down":

Karl Rapley: It could regenerate, so that was pretty OP from the start. In terms of the design, that was something you had to reveal, but also something to play up in the action sequences. Especially when the Kalisk and the Power Loader come together. How does a Power Loader fight a Kalisk that can regenerate? We decided to stick a giant saw blade through it to sort of overpower it that way.

Rapley also went on to reveal that the Kalisk's facial features underwent a variety of changes through the development process, with some iterations "had no tendrils at all," while others had a more "wavy" design to them, before they ultimately decided on a "bone-like tendril structure" to it. The Animation Supervisor also revealed that, for the Kalisk's movement, they looked at everything from bears — which can be seen "when it's pushing down on the top of the Power Loader and ripping it open" — to the raptors in Jurassic Park, "big cats" and even "a little bit of King Kong."

On Rapley's mention of the team trying to find "these quiet, emotional beats" for the Kalisk in Predator: Badlands, Stopsack went on to point out that the film ensures audiences don't only see it "as this monstrous creature," particularly given "the relationship between Bud and the Kalisk is complicated." Going back to the design process, which "took quite some time to lock down," the VFX Supervisor revealed that much of Rapley's work on the previsualization side of things "led to a component of what I like to call, 'form follows function'":

Sheldon Stopsack: We had all of these aspects, like the concept of regeneration or the idea of the saw blade, that actually informed a little bit of how the design had to play out as well. Form follows function was certainly an aspect of the process in my mind. It's also very complicated because you need to service the emotional side of the relationship with Bud. Are there similarities that you want to tease? Are there color schemes that you may see in both of them? Obviously, we opted for something that was really abstract in that sense, because you couldn't really give it away. The audience shouldn't clock it straight away, but there are similarities. Bud has scales, and the tendrils are an evolution that spawns from that. These things were all considered and all ultimately contributed to design choices in the final look of the Kalisk.

Karl Rapley: Yeah. There were lots of conversations. Dan was looking at it very closely, in terms of not wanting to show our hand too much, which was important.

Predator: Badlands served as a variety of firsts for the sci-fi franchise, though the Kalisk's introduction is one of the more notable. For starters, the creature is the first that a Yautja has hunted on screen that actually has stood above them on the predator-prey chain, with the typical foe of humans generally putting up an appropriate fight, but only after learning of their enemy's existence.

Dek and Bud leaning their heads against one another in Predator: Badlands

Additionally, apart from the Yautja defeated in prior movies, the Kalisk is also the first intended trophy not to be killed by the alien hunters come the end of Predator: Badlands. Initially, this came down to its regenerative abilities, though with Dek ultimately taking the Kalisk's side and attempting to reunite it with Bud, its offspring, the seemingly unkillable creature is instead defeated by Elle Fanning's Tessa with Dek's cryogenic grenades.

The design of the Kalisk in Predator: Badlands certainly feels true to much of the description Rapley and Stopsack gave above, with its four-legged walk cycle and focus on brute force being reminiscent of lions and bears. Interestingly, though, is that the design actually serves as a foreshadowing for the reveal of Bud being its offspring, with the scales and eyes included on both acting as subtle clues, even if the latter has different styles of animation compared to its bigger parental figure.

Be sure to dive into some of our other Predator: Badlands coverage with:

Our Predator: Badlands Review
Our guide on how Predator: Badlands connects to the Alien franchise
Dan Trachtenberg teasing what's next for the Predator franchise after Badlands
Dan Trachtenberg on how he was inspired by Star Wars' C-3PO and R2-D2 for the film
Dan Trachtenberg on abandoning a Tarantino-esque Predator movie set in World War II
Dan Trachtenberg revealing which original Predator character he wants to bring back
Dan Trachtenberg on the sneaky Stranger Things cameo in Badlands
Dan Trachtenberg explaining how Badlands breaks the franchise's planet-based trend
Dan Trachtenberg explaining why there are no human characters in Predator: Badlands
Elle Fanning and Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi revealing the surprising level of practicality behind the film
Stopsack & Rapley on how Predator: Badlands' ending fight was nearly very different

62 8.9/10

6/10

10 stars 9 stars 8 stars 7 stars 6 stars 5 stars 4 stars 3 stars 2 stars 1 star Like Follow Followed PG-13 Action Science Fiction Adventure Thriller Release Date November 5, 2025 Runtime 107 minutes Director Dan Trachtenberg Writers Dan Trachtenberg, Patrick Aison, John Thomas, Jim Thomas Producers Brent O'Connor, John Davis, Marc Toberoff, Dan Trachtenberg, Ben Rosenblatt

Cast

See All

Elle Fanning Thia / Tessa
Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi Dek / Father

Franchise(s) Predator Main Genre Sci-Fi Genres Action, Science Fiction, Adventure, Thriller Executive Producer(s) Stefan Grube, Lawrence Gordon, Jim Thomas, John Thomas Studio(s) 20th Century Studios Powered by

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