Will Packer Talks ‘Beast’ And Surviving The Box Office Jungle In 2022

Beast marks the sixth time that Idris Elba and producer Will Packer have worked together; this time, it is wild.

“Idris is very particular about the roles he takes on,” the filmmaker explained. “He wants to do something he hasn’t done before, something that feels different, that he feels like he can bring something to that other people can’t. I’m very selective about what I bring to him. I’m not bringing him a project every month so that when I brought him when I bring him something, he pays attention.”

Set in South Africa, Elba plays a widow who takes his two daughters to the place where he met their mother, his late wife. However, the trip quickly turns into a fight for survival after they find themselves being hunted by a rogue lion.

I caught up with Packer to discuss why Beast was a project he needed to take to his longtime friend, the biggest challenges of keeping things as realistic as possible and surviving the box office jungle in 2022.

Simon Thompson: Beast continues to shift away from stuff that you have been more traditionally associated with. Is that a deliberate move, or was it just a project you wanted to do regardless?

Will Packer: As a producer, I have the benefit of being able to do multiple different genres. As long as I can do them well, I don’t get pigeonholed in the same way that sometimes actors and directors do. I’ve had success in other areas, so if I can come through with a script that I can put together with all the right elements and the financing, which is no small feat, I can try different stuff. That’s the case here. Beast isn’t my first non-comedic film. I’ve done five other movies with Idris, and I don’t think any of those were comedies. Beast is definitely my first in the survival thriller and man versus beast genres. I’m excited about that. I’m excited about doing something different, and I can check that box off the resume. For me, it’s just all about interesting stories. What is the story I can tell that an audience will respond to? I always start with the audience, period. It’s not about critics. It’s about whether the audience will relate to something and gravitate towards it. Also, what’s the medium that makes sense to present the content to that audience, and then I try to go for it.

Thompson: Idris Elba is great as a leading man in this, and you’ve worked together before. Did you look at Beast as a script and have conversations early on about this being something you could do together?

Packer: Even before that. I thought of Idris when this was just a concept. It was a pitch that was brought to me by a woman named Jaime Primak Sullivan. She came up with the original idea for this. I immediately said, ‘Oh, this is something for my guy.’ Idris is very particular about the roles he takes on. He wants to do something he hasn’t done before, something that feels different, that he feels like he can bring something to that other people can’t. I’m very selective about what I bring to him. I’m not bringing him a project every month so that when I brought him when I bring him something, he pays attention. We’ve got a shorthand, camaraderie, and trust, and he knows I put him in a position to win. That’s how I felt about this. I said, ‘I think you can win with this character, this subject matter, this idea of a dad trying to hold together what’s left of a broken family.’ It’s a family in peril and trauma before they ever land on the continent of Africa to face a rogue killer lion.

Thompson: Within the first five minutes of Beast, you realize it’s not just an action-adventure, and there is a lot of stuff under the surface. To me, this is a monster movie. Beast refers to the lion; however, to the lion, Beast refers to Idris and all the other humans in this environment. Am I reading too much into that?

Packer: No, and that’s part of the nuance of this narrative. You are correct in saying that man is, at all times, from the lion’s perspective, a beast. Of course, you have the literal beast in this lion, which is man-made by poachers who have divided up the prize. That happens in real life. There is also the parallel between a father who is protecting his family, is in self-preservation mode, and is willing to do anything he has to do to preserve his life and the life of others. On the opposite side, you have this beast, who was also in self-preservation mode. Humans are threatening him in a way that requires him to do anything and everything necessary to survive. You’ve got both of these alpha males in traumatic positions and experiences going to go head-on, and something has got to give. That symbolism and those parallels were always very intentional, which we discussed throughout the development process.

Thompson: Would you consider this to be a monster movie? In a way, it reminded me of Jaws.

Packer: In a way, yes, I think it has the typical tropes of a monster created during this time. There is unwitting or ill-equipped prey, and you need that in a monster movie. You need that drive, that killer instinct that keeps going no matter what. It has definitely got aspects of a man versus beast survival thriller and monster movie, for sure.

Thompson: This was only a ten-week shoot; technically, this is a challenging movie. What were the unexpected issues you had once you and the director, Baltasar Kormákur, got out there with the crew and the talent?

Packer: It was the environment because it all starts with the environment. We were not anywhere near a major city. We were four to five hours away, so what that means is that what you’ve got is what you’ve got. It takes at least a day to get anything to you, so if you’re trying to shoot and figure things out, you’ve got to do it with the resources at hand. The plus side is that you’ve got backdrops that are so realistic, so incredible, and so unique. The only thing that is VFX and not real is our CGI lion. Everything else you see is real, and it helps to create this immersive experience. It also means that because you are so far out in the bush, you’re in the animal’s territory. We made a watering hole. We needed one in the narrative, and in the shot, we see Idris and Sharlto Copley go into this watering hole, chasing or running from the lion. It did exist in real life, but the watering hole had dried up because of the time of year we were shooting. We had to literally drill deep into the earth to hit the water bed and then pump some 2000 tons of water to create this watering hole. It was great for the movie. Cinematically it plays well, and it looks real because it is. The challenge is that the animals now say, ‘Oh, great, there’s this water source that wasn’t there before,’ and so it attracts all the animals that haven’t read a call sheet. They don’t care about your script, and they don’t know about what “Action” and “Cut” means. They’re just showing up, which required our crew to keep our head on a swivel because we’re in their domain. This is not like a typical African safari that you see people post on Instagram. Those are usually like 30 minutes to an hour outside of a city. That’s like going to the zoo. This was being out there in the real deal.

Thompson: Baltasar has directed such movies as Everest and has an incredible ability to create both intimacy and grand scale. From a production perspective, that must have been a critical point in having this work so that it didn’t feel static and lacking in depth.

Packer: There are a couple of different ways you can execute a movie like this. There are the extremes of a super cheesy B movie. You know what you’re signing up for, and none of it will be realistic, and the stakes won’t feel real. There is also the kind of movie that takes itself way too seriously, so it’s not a fun popcorn thrill ride. Baltasar’s skill set is somewhere in between, which is precisely what you said. You’ve got to have the scope, but you also have to invest in the characters, which comes from how he would have quiet moments of intimacy. A great example is when they’re in the car, and you don’t know where the lion is, where they’re whispering and talking about the family dynamic. The emotions of the moment and the characters are what draw you in. Baltasar does amazingly because when you’re getting used to those quiet moments of tense, palpable drama within our characters, then Wham! Here comes our killer lion again, and you’re back in the middle of a thrill ride. It’s that balance that he does well and that I was hoping for with this movie.

Thompson: Out of the gate, did you know you didn’t want to go for a hard R with Beast?

Packer: It is R-rated, but it’s not hard R. It’s R because the way our rating system works, almost any level of realistic violence will get you that, but we didn’t want to go to the gory place. We didn’t feel like that was the movie we wanted to make or that audiences wanted to see. That’s what I mean when I talk about that balance between a film that takes itself way too seriously and I was all about ripping in the jugular veins of humans and shredding flesh. That wasn’t a movie we were looking to make. We still wanted to make it fun and experiential, but while doing that, we tried to keep an eye on balancing it out and making it fun. Right now, a movie like this serves as escapism, and I think that’s what viewers are looking for. I love that it’s not a big comic book movie or some big branded IP. Beast is an original story being told in the summer. The test of whether or not audiences respond to that will be in the theaters.

Thompson: It isn’t easy these days to sell these original and mid-level middle movies, the ones that aren’t a big IP. How do you feel about that going out there with something like this?

Packer: It’s exciting and terrifying at the same time. It’s exciting because anytime you feel good about a project, you want to put it out there and want audiences to respond. You’re excited about having a fresh demographic to see your work, but it’s terrifying because the theatrical environment has never been more challenging. It just hasn’t. Audiences today see the marketing, the trailers, and promo spots, and they’ll hopefully read this interview, but will they say, ‘Okay, this is a theatrical proposition for me. Am I willing to leave my home in the middle of the world the way it is now to see this film’? We’ll see. I hope so, but that’s the terrifying part. It’s a very tough, theatrical marketplace. That is not lost on us. However, I’m kind of fearless when it comes to these things. I don’t shy away from it. I’m like, ‘Hey, let’s go for it. I feel good about the product. Let’s put it out there in theaters and see what happens.’

Beast lands in theaters on Friday, August 19, 2022.