‘Apex’ Meets ‘The Beekeeper’ in Your New Favorite Action Movie Officially Coming This Year
Few action directors have produced as many hits over the years as David Ayer, who most recently teamed with Jason Statham for the 2025 action classic, A Working Man. The film is viewed as a spiritual successor to another Ayer-Statham collaboration, The Beekeeper, which buzzed into theaters the year prior and grossed over $160 million at the global box office. All the way back in 2012, Ayer worked with Michael Peña and Jake Gyllenhaal for End of Watch, which is still hailed to this day as one of the grittiest police procedurals ever made. Ayer encountered a bump in the road in 2016 when he directed Suicide Squad, but it’s widely known that the movie was derailed by studio interference. Two years before Suicide Squad, he teamed up with Brad Pitt for the epic WWII movie, Fury, and now he’s set to reunite with the Oscar-winner for a new movie officially coming this year.
Last year, Ayer and Pitt wrapped production on a mysterious new action-adventure thriller titled Heart of the Beast, but updates about the project have been sparse over the last few months, until last night. News broke that Heart of the Beast is getting a wide theatrical release on September 25, thanks to Paramount Pictures, which is happy enough with what it’s seen as to not dump the film straight onto streaming. Both Pitt and Ayer are hot right now thanks to recent hits like F1 and The Beekeeper, so Paramount is certainly hoping to see this momentum continue with Heart of the Beast. J.K. Simmons (Whiplash) also has a key role in Heart of the Beast, along with Anna Lambe, but any additional cast members are being kept under wraps for now.
What Is ‘Heart of the Beast’ About?
Heart of the Beast follows a former military combat veteran and his beloved dog who attempt to reintegrate into society following a terrible accident in the Alaskan wilderness. The film shares some obviouls similarities with Apex, the latest Netflix survival thriller starring Charlize Theron and Taron Egerton. Fans can also rest assured that Ayer is going to bring some all-time great action to life in Heart of the Beast, also making the film a must-watch for fans of The Beekeeper and John Wick.
Check out Heart of the Beast in theaters everywhere later this year on September 25 and stay tuned to Collider for more updates and coverage of Pitt and Ayer’s future projects.
- Release Date
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April 24, 2026
- Runtime
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96 minutes
- Director
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Baltasar Kormákur
- Writers
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Jeremy Robbins
- Producers
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A.J. Dix, Charlize Theron, Dawn Olmstead, Ian Bryce, Jenno Topping, Ray Angelic, Beth Kono, Peter Chernin, David Ready