Idris Elba hopes Beast boosts the revival of cinemas

Idris Elba wants his new movie ‘Beast’ to continue the revival of cinemas.

The 49-year-old actor stars in the new survival thriller as Dr. Nate Samuels, a father who is forced to protect his daughters from a ferocious lion on a trip to South Africa, and he hopes that flick provides a similar big-screen experience to that of ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ as the film industry bounces back from the coronavirus pandemic.

Discussing the movie heading exclusively to cinema, Idris told ComicBook.com: “Man, this is great, I feel great.

“I mean, I just feel like we saw what audiences felt like going to watch ‘Maverick’, you know what I mean? And I feel like, not to compare, but we want to take the audience there, too.

“‘Maverick’ did, and ‘Beast’ is definitely gonna do that and I think that’s good, we want to continue the trend of moviegoing again, you know what I mean? Like it’s a special environment to see films, right?”

The movie was shot last year in South Africa to capture the environment where a lion attack would be possible, but Idris actually had to battle cold weather during the film.

The ‘Luther’ star said: “It was their winter, so it was freezing. South Africa was a big character in the film.”

No actual lions were used during the making of ‘Beast’ but Idris was determined to make the movie as “realistic” as possible.

Idris Elba wants ‘Beast’ to continue the revival of cinemas. The star explained: “I mean, obviously no lions in this, but we really had to pay attention.

“This is a fantastical story, lions don’t attack human beings in this way, but we wanted to make it realistic. I was really keen to make a film that just plucked audiences from wherever they’re sitting and threw them into this family’s predicament. So it was interesting, it was really hard work as well.”

Beast is a 2022 American survival thriller film directed by Baltasar Kormákur from a screenplay by Ryan Engle, based on a story by Jaime Primak Sullivan.

In cinemas Aug 26th.