BEN AFFLECK & KERRY WASHINGTON FACE A TERRIFYING FAMILY NIGHTMARE! Their Missing Son’s Disappearance Uncovers SHO-CKING Secrets, Betrayal and a Truth That Could Destroy Everything
Ben Affleck is heading back into dark thriller territory — and this time, he’s putting a family under almost unbearable pressure.
Netflix has unveiled the first teaser for Animals, a tense new crime thriller starring Affleck alongside Kerry Washington, with the film set to arrive in select theaters and on the streaming platform on October 9.
Affleck doesn’t just lead the cast. He also directs and co-wrote the film, bringing audiences into what quickly becomes the worst night imaginable for one powerful Los Angeles family.
At the center of the story is Mark Kimball, played by Affleck, a candidate running to become mayor of Los Angeles. From the outside, Mark and his wife Abigail, portrayed by Washington, appear to have built an enviable life.
But everything changes with one terrifying development: their son is kidnapped.
Suddenly, political ambitions, public appearances and carefully protected reputations mean very little. Mark and Abigail are thrown into a desperate race to bring their child home.
And paying the ransom may only be the beginning.
A kidnapping exposes something much bigger
According to the film’s official premise, the couple must scramble to raise the ransom money while becoming trapped inside an increasingly dangerous web of deception.
The crisis forces them to confront choices capable of tearing apart not only Mark’s political future, but their marriage and everything they thought they knew about the people surrounding them.
The teaser leans heavily into that uncertainty.
An ominous phone call sends Mark and Abigail scrambling for answers, while the polished world they have created begins cracking around them. Against the glittering Los Angeles backdrop, the film appears determined to ask one unsettling question: when your family is threatened, who can you actually trust?
For Affleck, it marks another return to the kind of morally complicated thriller territory that has produced some of his most memorable work.
After starring in films such as Gone Girl and winning an Academy Award alongside Matt Damon for writing Good Will Hunting, Affleck established himself behind the camera with films including The Town and the Best Picture-winning Argo.
With Animals, he is once again directing himself while tackling a story built around desperation, secrecy and impossible decisions.
The supporting cast is seriously stacked
Affleck and Washington are joined by an impressive ensemble featuring Gillian Anderson, Steven Yeun, Adriana Paz, Luis Gerardo Méndez and Ray Fisher.
Mark Kassen and Christopher Woodley also appear.
That collection of talent makes the mystery surrounding the Kimballs particularly intriguing, especially with Netflix describing the couple as being drawn into a wider network of deception after the kidnapping.
Exactly who is hiding something — and how much Mark and Abigail themselves may be keeping secret — remains carefully under wraps.
The movie was filmed in and around Los Angeles, with the city playing an important role in the atmosphere of the story rather than simply serving as a backdrop.
Animals is also produced in partnership with Artists Equity, the artist-led studio founded by Affleck, Matt Damon and Gerry Cardinale. Affleck, Damon and Dani Bernfeld serve as producers alongside Brad Weston and Collin Creighton.
For now, Netflix is keeping many of the thriller’s biggest revelations hidden. But between the kidnapping, the ransom, Mark’s political ambitions and the suggestion that virtually nobody can be trusted, the Kimballs’ nightmare looks considerably more complicated than a straightforward abduction.
Animals arrives in select theaters and on Netflix on October 9.
