Beast finally asks the question: “what if Cujo, but a lion? Also, Idris Elba.”
Directed by Baltasar Kormákur (2 Guns), the survival-thriller stars The Wire actor as a widowed father of two who visits a game reserve in South Africa with his daughters. While taking in the sights, the family is attacked in their car by a “devil” lion.
“We’re in his territory now,” the game reserve manager (played by Sharlto Copley) says in the trailer above. “It’s the law of the jungle, it’s the only law that matters.” If Beast ends with Idris Elba and the lion teaming up to kill some poachers, it will be the best movie of the year (or at least the best “when animals attack” movie since Crawl).
Here’s more:
Elba plays 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 (Copley), an old family friend and wildlife biologist. But what begins as a journey of healing jolts into a fight for survival when a lion, a survivor of blood-thirsty poachers who now sees all humans as the enemy, begins stalking them.
Beast, which also stars Iyana Halley, Leah Sava Jeffries, and Riley Keough, opens in theaters on August 19.