‘A-Team’ actor Sharlto Copley boards Idris Elba-starrer film ‘Beast’

By PTI

LOS ANGELES: South African actor Sharlto Copley, best known for movies like “A-Team”, “District 9” and “Elysium”, will feature alongside Idris Elba in Universal’s “Beast”.

The survival thriller, being directed by Baltasar Kormakur of “Everest” fame, has started filming in South Africa, reported Deadline.

Copley joins the film’s cast along with actors Iyana Halley and Leah Sava Jeffries.

Based on an original idea by Jaime Primak Sullivan, the film has a script by Ryan Engle, who previously worked on the Dwayne Johnson-starrer “Rampage”.

Elba will star as 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 teenage daughters to a game reserve managed by an old family friend and wildlife biologist.

But what begins as a journey of healing jolts into a fearsome fight for survival when a rogue lion, a survivor of blood-thirsty poachers who now sees all humans as the enemy, begins stalking them.

Copley will play the role of Samuels’ old friend, Martin Battles.

Halley and Jeffreis will feature as Samuels’ daughters Meredith and Norah respectively.

“Beast” will be filmed entirely in South Africa during a 10-week shoot in the rural provinces of Limpopo and Northern Cape and in the city of Cape Town.

Will Packer and James Lopez are producing the project through their Will Packer Productions.

Kormakur, who previously made films like “The Deep”, “Everest” and “Adrift”, is producing through his RVK Studios.

Sullivan and Bernard Bellew serve as the executive producers.

“Beast” will be released by Universal Pictures in the US on August 19, 2022.