Beast trailer: Idris Elba, Sharlto Copley take on a rampaging lion in survival thriller

Last month, our own Chris Bumbray was able to see a trailer for the “nature run amok” survival thriller Beast at CinemaCon, and described it as looking “super action-packed, like a legit action-thriller, and it ends on a badass shot of (Idris Elba) fighting the lion hand to hand.” The trailer Bumbray saw last month is now online, and you can check it out in the embed above. And yes, it does include the sight of Idris Elba punching a lion.

Beast is heading toward an August 19, 2022 release date.

Directed by Baltasar Kormakur (Contraband) from a screenplay by Ryan Engle (Rampage), Beast finds Elba taking on the role of Dr. Nate Samuels, 

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. 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. 

Elba (Hobbs & Shaw) is joined in the cast by Sharlto Copey (District 9) as Nate’s old friend Martin Battles, Iyana Halley (The Hate U Give) as Nate’s 18-year-old daughter Meredith, and Leah Sava Jeffries (Empire) as his 13-year-old daughter Norah.

A collaboration between Universal, Will Packer Productions, Known Associates Entertainment, and South Africa’s Department of Trade Industry and Competition, Beast was filmed in the rural provinces of Limpopo and Northern Cape in Cape Town. Will Packer produced the film with James Lopez, while Jaime Primak Sullivan and Bernard Bellew served as executive producers.

I was sold on this project as soon as we heard we were getting a movie about “Idris Elba vs. a man-eating lion”. As it turns out, the lion’s rampage is even worse than expected, because it’s not only a man-eater. The trailer shows that it’s killing people without eating them, it’s just on a homicidal rampage. That makes Beast even more interesting, as far as I’m concerned.

Are you looking forward to Beast? Let us know by leaving a comment below.