Earlier this week, Netflix announced that it wasn’t renewing its agreement with premium cable network Epix, meaning that several recent blockbuster releases like The Hunger Games, World War Z and Transformers: Age of Extinction would no longer be available on the streaming provider.
No worries, claimed Netflix executive Ted Sarandos, because original movies were going to be produced to replace that content. That drew a lot of snark about the Adam Sandler movie, Ridiculous Six, and a new Pee-wee Herman film included among the network’s upcoming slate.
But one of those original productions looks both intriguing and prestigious. Beasts of No Nation is directed by Cary Fukunaga, best known for directing season one of True Detective, along with the films Sin Nombre and Jane Eyre. The movie stars Idris Elba as the warlord leading an army of child soldiers in an unnamed African country. Here is the first trailer:
Fukunaga is a highly regarded young filmmaker, even more so after the mediocre and inconsistent season two of True Detective, which featured several different directors. You can see his talent and eye as a director from the very first sequence of this trailer in which a child mercenary wades through a reservoir filled with water, mud and blood, while smoking a cigar. It’s jarring imagery. He also wrote the script, adapting a 2005 novel by Uzodinma Iweala.
Elba appears to be performing a role unlike any we’ve seen from him before, conveying both the fearsomeness of a ruthless guerrilla leader and a charismatic leader of young men. Abraham Attah also looks impressive as Agu, the main character of the story, an innocent recruited into this army who becomes a hardened soldier.
Beasts of No Nation will premiere on Netflix and get a limited theatrical release on Oct. 16.
[Netflix]
