The Law of the Jungle is the only law that matters when you are in the lion’s territory. Universal Pictures has released a brand-new official trailer for Beast, the upcoming survival thriller starring Idris Elba that sees the beloved actor attempting to survive a lion attack and get his daughters and friend back home. The trailer opens seeing Elba’s character, Dr. Nate Daniels, landing a plane in South Africa with this two daughters, Meredith, played by Iyana Halley (The Hate U Give, This is Us), and Norah, played by Leah Sava Jeffries (Empire, Percy Jackson). The trio is coming here on a trip to reconnect after the recent death of Nate’s wife. They are staying on a game reserve managed by his old friend Martin Battles, played by Sharlto Copley (Russian Doll, Maleficent).
The first 30 seconds seem to hint that this journey will be fairly normal and might actually be the healing experience that it was meant to be. Photos are taken and laughs are had, all with the soothing notes of Jimmy Cliff‘s “I Can See Clearly Now” playing over the trailer. That all changes when they find a man in the middle of the road saying that he had been attacked by a “devil.” Arriving in the man’s village, the group finds the residents slaughtered. When they leave, they are attacked by a blood-thirsty lion and are trapped within their car. The rest of the trailer gives us snippets of the drama that will unfold, like Elba fighting to survive against the lion, a group of poachers coming across our heroes as they attempt to find their wounded prey, and seeing the lion make its way through the window of the car to close out the suspense-filled trailer.
Elba is known for several iconic roles including the cool and calculating Stringer Bell from the HBO series The Wire. Some of his most recent roles include starring in Universal’s Fast and Furious spinoff Hobbs & Shaw, as well as James Gunn‘s version of the DC movie The Suicide Squad. He also recently appeared in the highly popular Sonic The Hedgehog 2, providing the voice for Knuckles the Echidna, who is set to get his own spinoff series on Paramount+.
Beast is directed by Baltasar Kormákur (Everest) with its screenplay penned by Ryan Engle (Rampage) from an original story by Jaime Primak Sullivan. Sullivan serves as executive producer on the film alongside Bernard Bellew. The film is produced by Universal Pictures.
Beast is set to hit theaters on August 19. You can check out the official trailer and read the official description of the upcoming survival thriller down below.
Dr. Nate Daniels, a recently widowed husband who returns to South Africa, where he first met his wife, on a long-planned trip with their daughters to a game reserve managed by Martin Battles, an old family friend and wildlife biologist. But what begins as a journey of healing jolts into a fearsome fight for survival when a lion, a survivor of blood-thirsty poachers who now sees all humans as the enemy, begins stalking them.
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