Idris Elba hopes Beast boosts the revival of cinemas

Idris Elba wants his new movie 'Beast' to continue the revival of cinemas.

The 49-year-old actor stars in the new survival thriller as Dr. Nate Samuels, a father who is forced to protect his daughters from a ferocious lion on a trip to South Africa, and he hopes that flick provides a similar big-screen experience to that of 'Top Gun: Maverick' as the film industry bounces back from the coronavirus pandemic.

Discussing the movie heading exclusively to cinema, Idris told ComicBook.com: "Man, this is great, I feel great.

"I mean, I just feel like we saw what audiences felt like going to watch 'Maverick', you know what I mean? And I feel like, not to compare, but we want to take the audience there, too.

"'Maverick' did, and 'Beast' is definitely gonna do that and I think that's good, we want to continue the trend of moviegoing again, you know what I mean? Like it's a special environment to see films, right?"

The movie was shot last year in South Africa to capture the environment where a lion attack would be possible, but Idris actually had to battle cold weather during the film.

The 'Luther' star said: "It was their winter, so it was freezing. South Africa was a big character in the film."

No actual lions were used during the making of 'Beast' but Idris was determined to make the movie as "realistic" as possible.

The star explained: "I mean, obviously no lions in this, but we really had to pay attention.

"This is a fantastical story, lions don't attack human beings in this way, but we wanted to make it realistic. I was really keen to make a film that just plucked audiences from wherever they're sitting and threw them into this family's predicament. So it was interesting, it was really hard work as well."