Ben Affleck isn’t done with Netflix crime thrillers just yet. Months after “The Rip” became the streamer’s most-watched film of the year so far, racking up 4.4 billion minutes viewed, Affleck is back with the first teaser for “Animals,” a kidnapping thriller he directed, co-wrote and stars in alongside Kerry Washington, according to Screen Rant.
The film marks Affleck’s return to the director’s chair for the first time since 2023’s “Air,” and puts him in front of the camera as Mark Kimball, a Los Angeles mayoral candidate whose campaign unravels the moment his son is kidnapped. Washington plays his wife, Abigail, and the two scramble to raise a ransom while a web of buried secrets threatens to surface along with it, according to The Playlist.
The nearly wordless teaser leans on tone rather than exposition. It moves from campaign-trail glimpses of Mark and his family to a much darker register — a phone that won’t stop vibrating, a tense exchange between Mark and Abigail, and Gillian Anderson’s character arriving unannounced at their front door. It ends with Mark himself in the crosshairs, as a masked figure aims a gun at him from a distance, per Screen Rant’s breakdown of the footage.
Affleck wrote the screenplay with Connor O. McIntyre and Billy Ray, continuing a directing run that includes “Gone Baby Gone,” “The Town,” “Argo” and “Live by Night,” according to FirstShowing.net. The project also reunites him professionally with longtime collaborator Matt Damon, who produces rather than acts this time, through their Artists Equity banner alongside Dani Bernfeld — the same studio behind “Air,” a few years after Affleck and Damon’s original Oscar-winning writing partnership on “Good Will Hunting,” The Hollywood Reporter notes. Brad Weston and Collin Creighton of Makeready also produce, with Fifth Season developing the project.
The supporting cast includes Steven Yeun, Adriana Paz, Ray Fisher, Luis Gerardo Méndez and Matt Gerald, joining Affleck, Washington and Anderson, according to ComingSoon.net. The film is rated R for language throughout, some violence and sexual references, per VitalThrills.
“Animals” opens in select theaters and begins streaming on Netflix October 9, following the same day-and-date rollout Netflix has used for its bigger theatrical crossovers, according to the film’s official Tudum page.
