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"There were distinct, daily moments where I sat there
completely demoralized, thinking this is going to be a complete
failure," filmmaker Cary Fukunaga told Reuters ahead of the
film's simultaneous release on Friday in U.S. theaters and
online streaming platform Netflix Inc.
"Beasts," written, directed and produced by Emmy-winning
Fukunaga, follows a pre-teen boy named Agu, whose happy, simple
life with his family is suddenly and violently torn apart as a
civil war breaks out in the unnamed West African country.
Agu, played by newcomer Ghanaian actor Abraham Attah, escapes
death but is captured and recruited by the mercenary Commandant
(Idris Elba) and his rag-tag army of child soldiers.
Sitting at an upscale hotel in Los Angeles earlier this week,
Fukunaga laughed a little as he reflected on the strenuous film
shoot in Ghana.
He credited British actor Elba, the only professional actor in
the cast and of half-Ghanaian descent, from helping to get
approval for the shoot, to portraying a conflicted villain on
screen.
"He brought humanity in a way that was unexpected for that
role," the director said.
While the story is fictional, Fukunaga said he channeled the
real brutality of war in scenes of jarring violence - in one
moment, Agu swings a machete into a man's skull.
"Maybe it's too much for some people, but I think it's necessary
to not sugarcoat the brutality, to not sugarcoat the actions of
these children," he said.
"Even then, I think I could have been more severe sometimes."
"Beasts" was independently financed with a budget around $6
million, before being acquired by Netflix as the platform's
first original film.
Fukunaga said he wasn't worried about the film finding its
audience given Netflix's 65 million subscribers, and while "it
was always going to be a struggle to get people to go to the
cinema," he hoped that audiences would opt to see it on big
screens.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings told Reuters this week that he was not
concerned about the violence in "Beasts" limiting its audience -
the film was "already a success in terms of the amount of
coverage and excitement around it."
"It's a real story of life in a turbulent world," Hastings said.
(This story corrects name of Netflix CEO to Reed Hastings from
Ted Sarandos in paragraph 13 and 14)
(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy, additional reporting by Jessica
Toonkel; Editing by Diane Craft)
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