Idris Elba will lead the cast of a new survival thriller, Beast, and will reportedly star in a planned G.I. Joe reboot.
The storyline for Beast is under wraps but scribe Ryan Engle apparently wrote the screenplay from Jaime Primak-Sullivan’s ideas. Universal Studios tapped Baltasar Kormakur to direct the Idris Elba movie.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film will have a similar tone as the thriller The Shallow, which featured sharks and starred Blake Lively. Beast, however, will feature killer lions that Elba’s character will have to fend off.
Filming for Beast has not yet been set but Elba still has a lot of projects for release. The actor is coming off from the drama Concrete Cowboy. Movie fans will see him next in the new Suicide Squad sequel as Bloodshot.
Those G.I. Joe rumors
It’s unclear how busy the actor’s schedule will be in 2021 as he’s also rumored for a role in the upcoming G.I. Joereboot. According to a Hollywood insider, Idris Elba is one of the names in Paramount Pictures’ shortlist of stars who will become part of what is, technically, the third G.I. Joe movie.
Also on the list are big box office names like John Cena, Dwayne Johnson, Mark Wahlberg and Tom Holland. But the British actor is no stranger to Hollywood franchise films as he was in the cast of Pacific Rim, the Fast and the Furious and the Thor/Avengers movies.
Incidentally, a spinoff to the G.I. Joe franchise is going to be in theaters Oct. 21. Henry Golding stars in the upcoming film Snake Eyes.
No more chance for James Bond?
Meanwhile, fans of the actor are apparently disappointed after talks surfaced that the next James Bond who will replace Daniel Craig has been chosen. Social media has been burning up over rumors that Tom Hardy will be the new Agent 007.
According to reports, Hardy’s confirmation will come after Craig’s final Bond movie, No Time to Die, is set for a theater release later this year. The announcement was supposed to be done earlier but the movie had to be pushed back due to COVID-19.
Elba’s fans took to Twitter to express their disappointment, according to the Indy100. Many were disappointed that another white actor has been given the role.
However, the producers of the Bond IP property, Eon Productions, have not made official comments about the latest reports thus the buzz around Hardy remains unconfirmed. Idris Elba has been rumored to be in talks with Eon as the next James Bond since before Craig started filming his final move two years ago.
Image courtesy of Harald Krichel/ CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)