‘Alien: Earth” oozes into Comic-Con Day 2, ‘Predator: Badlands’ slays and ‘Tron: Ares’ dazzles

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Grid has overtaken Comic-Con.

Disney unveiled details about “Tron: Ares,” which stars Jared Leto, Jeff Bridges and Greta Lee at an evening presentation in Comic-Con’s famed Hall H. It will be the third feature film in the “Tron” franchise that kicked off with the hit 1982 film and had a 2010 sequel, “Tron: Legacy.”

The original starred Bridges as a computer hacker who gets trapped in a digital world. The Oscar-winner drew the biggest applause when introduced during the panel.

“Tron: Ares” sees the Grid breaking through the real world.

The other major presentations Friday included updates on the final season of “Outlander” and its prequel series “Outlander: Blood of My Blood,” “Alien: Earth” and “Predator: Badlands.”

An estimated 135,000 people from around the globe are expected to attend Comic-Con 2025, which runs through Sunday in downtown San Diego.

Fans on opening day got a preview of “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2,” “The Toxic Avenger,” and a joke-filled session with comedians Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias and Jo Koy.

‘Predator: Badlands’ slays Comic-Con

The Predator is on the hunt again.

Director Dan Trachtenberg brought new footage from “Predator: Badlands” to Comic-Con’s Hall H, showing off an unfinished cut of the movie’s first 15 minutes and bringing the film’s stars.

The massive convention hall erupted in cheers at clip, which featured a family of Predators fighting. The early scenes set the stakes for the movie, which is about a Predator sent on its first hunt on an unforgiving planet.

Trachtenberg said one inspiration behind the movie was the realization that “The Predator never wins.” He wanted to see what that would look like but didn’t want to make a slasher film, he said.

Elle Fanning, who plays a cyborg who spends much of the film strapped to the young Predator’s back, said her first foray into sci-fi presented many new acting challenges.

“I was really strapped to his back for hours and hours,” she said.

While that was physically challenging, she said, at least she wasn’t acting across from a tennis ball, which is often used to give actors a sense of the scale of computer-generated characters.

“Badlands” changed the Predator costume from previous iterations, keeping everything as a tangible costume except for the face. That allowed her to act opposite Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, which Trachtenberg said allowed for more emotional range from the Predator.

The movie takes place on a deadly planet where Trachtenberg said all the plants and animals are trying to kill the Predator. Moderator Kevin Smith (yes, the “Clerks’ director) likened it to “essentially Australia in space.”

Trachtenberg also showed a clip that will be added to the animated “Killer of Killers” movie, which will become a new end credits scene. It shows an expansive prison of cryogenically frozen beings, three of whom are the human protagonists — all killers of Predators — from the first two “Predator” movies and “Prey.”

The new scene was added to the film, which streams on Hulu Friday night.

“Predator: Badlands” arrives in theaters Nov. 7.

‘Alien: Earth’ oozes its way into Comic-Con

It won’t be long before audiences get to see the Xenomorph in “Alien: Earth.” But there are some new alien life forms creator Noah Hawley will introduce in the upcoming FX series.

Hawley and the cast screened the first episode for a packed Hall H at Comic-Con to cheers and a few scared noises when a new creepy-crawly alien creature claimed its first victim.

Hawley, who created the “Fargo” series, said showing audiences new creatures is central to recapturing the feel of the original “Alien” movie.

One of the things he’s good at is “understanding what the original movie made me feel and why and trying to create it anew,” he said.

Part of the power of Ridley Scott’s “Alien” is “the discovery of the life cycle of this creature,” Hawley said. He said he was trying to capture the “genetic revulsion of ‘Alien’ for the first time.”

The show stars Sydney Chandler as a new life-form created when the consciousness of a young girl is transferred into an adult body with superhuman strength and speed.

Asked how she reacted to seeing the Xenomorph on set for the first time, Chandler said, “I almost peed. I became a kid again.

“A xenomorph was in my night terrors as a kid.”

The first episode introduces the doomed crew of the USS Maginot and the aftermath its crash-landing in an Earth city after some of its specimens break free.

Set in 2120, it unspools two years before the events of “Alien.” The early moments establish the world as a place controlled by massive corporations and where humans, cyborgs and synthetic humans coexist.

Babou Ceesay plays a cyborg whose mission is to protect the alien species at all costs. Humanlike, he has an arm that was likened Friday to a Swiss Army knife.

But Ceesay said his character has been away from Earth for more than 60 years and isn’t as advanced as he seems: “He’s coming back to a planet where he’s essentially an iPhone 1 in an iPhone 20 world.”

The show premieres Aug. 12 on FX.

Is ‘Alien vs. Predator’ next?

The topic of the ultimate matchup between Aliens versus Predators came up during both sessions Friday. The matchup of the two fearsome aliens has been the subject of comic books, video games and a 2004 movie.

Hawley didn’t spill any news about reboots.

Trachtenberg, who Smith described as the keeper of the Predator franchise now, had a simple answer: “Wouldn’t it be cool?”