‘Predator’ joins ‘Star Wars,’ ‘Lord of the Rings’ with new prequel ‘Prey’
Get ready to go back to the beginning.
Prequel movies offering backstories for some of Hollywood’s biggest film franchises remain red hot, with the “Predator” origin story “Prey” roaring onto Hulu this Friday.
Here are some of the other fan-favorite movies that got worthy prequels years later.
‘Star Wars’
A galaxy far, far away expanded in a massive way with three prequel flicks between 1999 and 2005 that added some of the coolest heroes, villains and lightsaber battles to an already out-of-this-world movie series.
The trilogy of “The Phantom Menace,” “Attack of the Clones” and “Revenge of the Sith” shows how onetime hero Anakin Skywalker became the villainous Darth Vader.
“Star Wars” has since explored the events preceding the original trilogy even further with the 2016 movie “Rogue One” and the “Obi-Wan Kenobi” series that came out this year.
Each of those “Star Wars” projects is streaming on Disney+.
‘Toy Story’
The beloved Pixar franchise went to infinity and beyond with “Lightyear,” a new origin story for the Buzz Lightyear action figure.
“Lightyear” reveals that a movie featuring a space ranger named Buzz is what inspired the toy, while introducing new heroes from all backgrounds.
“Leaders, heroes come in all shapes and sizes, and I think that’s the thing that ‘Lightyear’ is also writing for. That is the future,” star Keke Palmer told the Daily News in June.
The movie remains in theaters and arrived on digital platforms Wednesday.
‘Harry Potter’
The “Fantastic Beasts” movies added magic to the wizarding world introduced in the “Harry Potter” books and films.
Set decades earlier, the first “Fantastic Beasts” film felt more like a spinoff, showing what happened in New York City long before Harry’s heroics in London.
The last two films, however, have delved into the youth of beloved wizard Albus Dumbledore, the wise Hogwarts headmaster central to the “Potter” series.
All three “Fantastic Beasts” movies, including this year’s “Secrets of Dumbledore,” are streaming on HBO Max.
‘The Lord of the Rings’
Peter Jackson’s epic trilogy already got three “Hobbit” prequel movies, but the fantasy franchise will soon look back even further.
The much-anticipated “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” series is set multiple millenniums before either of the previous trilogies, depicting adventures from the Second Age of Middle-earth.
“The Rings of Power” arrives Sept. 2 on Amazon’s Prime Video.
———
