Paramount has dropped a second trailer for “Heart of the Beast,” and this one leans even harder into the emotional stakes behind all the wilderness carnage. The two-minute cut, released this week, follows Special Forces veteran James Belmont and his combat dog Odin as a routine flight over the Alaskan backcountry turns into a fight for survival after their plane goes down, footage Screen Rant broke down shot by shot shortly after release.
Brad Pitt plays Belmont opposite Odin, played on-screen by a Belgian Malinois named Uber. The bond between the two is the trailer’s real engine: early shots show them still adjusting to civilian life together before Belmont decides it’s time his retired K-9 partner finally gets some peace, boarding a seaplane bound for the wilderness. That peace doesn’t last. Bloody Disgusting notes the plane goes down almost immediately, stranding both of them with no way to call for help.
From there, the footage settles into familiar survival-thriller territory, but with teeth. Belmont and Odin cross a fallen tree acting as a makeshift bridge, fend off a bear, and navigate a river crossing that nearly costs Belmont his life trying to keep the dog from falling in, according to a breakdown from ComingSoon.net. “I’m gonna get you home,” Belmont tells the dog in one of the trailer’s closing lines, a promise Variety’s coverage of the footage singled out as the emotional crux of the film.
Director David Ayer, whose credits include “Suicide Squad,” “Bright” and “The Beekeeper,” is reuniting with Pitt for the first time since their 2014 World War II drama “Fury.” The Hollywood Reporter points out the pairing marks Ayer’s most personal-feeling project in years, built less around spectacle than around the specific, wordless trust between a soldier and the animal he served alongside. J.K. Simmons and Anna Lambe round out the film’s small human cast, though The Playlist’s coverage of the trailer notes the film’s real second lead is unmistakably the dog.
Despite its Alaskan setting, the film was shot entirely in New Zealand, using the country’s national parks to stand in for the wilderness, a production detail FirstShowing.net flagged in its own coverage of the footage. Cameron Alexander wrote the screenplay, and Pitt produces through his Plan B Entertainment alongside Ayer, Olivia Hamilton and Marty Bowen, with Damien Chazelle among the executive producers.
“Heart of the Beast” arrives in theaters, including Dolby Cinema locations, on September 25, opening the same weekend as DreamWorks’ animated “Forgotten Island.” Deadline, which has tracked the project since Pitt first signed on early last year, notes the release also marks his first theatrical starring role since Apple’s Oscar-nominated racing drama “F1” last year.
