Beast (A)

Although all of the animals that appear in the film are computer generated, director Baltasar Kormákur decided to have a real one brought to set one day so that he could work out how to realistically capture it using CGI. Sharlto Copley recalled how a miscommunication meant a number of the cast and crew ended up spending time hiding in their trailers. "You know how these miscommunications can happen very quickly," he says. "So the lion is on a separate unit they're shooting it as a reference, the animation unit is shooting it to see how fur moves and getting the lion in different positions, doing all sorts of crazy stuff. "Anyway, I come out of my trailer, I'm literally walking out and I just hear somebody going like 'Get the f**k back inside'. And instinctively I close the door, I think like is there a riot? Is there something we're in the middle of nowhere like what's happening? And the guy's like 'There's a lion in base camp!' "Base camp is where all the trailers are," Copley continues. "We're like 20 minutes from set by car because we're shooting in the middle of nowhere and then for about an hour and a half, we thought that there was a lion walking around our trailers, and everyone's trying to look for where is the lion. "And every now and then somebody comes back from set to the base camp and would walk in and wouldn't know. And people would go, like, 'Get in a trailer!' And then they'd sort of look at us, like, what are you doing? And we'd be like 'There's a lion!' And then they'd run it was crazy." He adds: "The Universal executives were telling me last night, this is the worst case scenario for a movie about lions, if somebody gets eaten right now, like, just keep everybody away from this lion." Thankfully, though, it eventually came to light that the incident had been blown out of proportion and the cast and crew had never really been in any danger from the animal. "It was actually fine," Copley explains. "The lion was 10 kilometers away! It was being transported when it escaped. And they caught it and put it back and it was no issue."

Idris Elba revealed that the most difficult part of filming was the fight scene between his character and the lion. Elba was required to work alongside both movement and stunt performers wearing motion-capture suits mimicking the actions of Nate's animal adversary. Elba also recounted studying Leonardo DiCaprio's performance in the 2015 survival drama "The Revenant" for inspiration. "The bear sequence that Leonardo does is really realistic and is sort of a benchmark in terms of what we wanted to achieve for the audience," Elba said. "Because everyone who watched that was horrified."

On why he did the movie, Idris Elba stated: "I come from an era where these sort of films were the norm, like high-anxiety, 'Run, chase, run, chase, look out, look behind you!' This was an opportunity for me to make a film like that. I've done thrillers before, but this was the first time it involved this cat-and-mouse aspect to it. I was really intrigued by the family dynamic, the daughters, the nature of grief, this doctor who's essentially someone that's composed and tries not to panic, found himself doing just that," Elba tells Complex about the survival thriller directed by Baltasar Kormákur. "I just love the script. I love Baltasar, the director. I wanted to work with him. He's made some really incredible survivor movies, and I just wanted to get his take on what this might be like."

The lioness "Nandi" name means, "happy, joy, and satisfaction".

Filming commenced on June 1, 2021, in South Africa and lasted for ten weeks.