Ben Affleck To Direct And Star In Netflix Thriller Animals Opposite Gillian Anderson

2025 is shaping up to be quite the year for Ben Affleck. The multi-hyphenate filmmaker and actor already has two major movies releasing this year — Gavin O'Connor's long-gestating The Accountant sequel and Joe Carnahan's Netflix bound, Matt Damon co-starring thriller RIP — but that hasn't stopped him putting an exciting third into his pipeline. According to Deadline, Affleck is now set to both lead and direct kidnapping thriller Animals at Netflix, with Gillian Anderson also aboard to star.

First announced last January, the original plan for Animals was to have Affleck in the director's hotseat and his longtime creative partner and Artists Equity co-founder Damon leading the movie's line-up. However, a rights issue pushed production back just long enough for Christopher Nolan to swoop in and sign Damon up to lead his ambitious retelling of Homer's epic The Odyssey (which, honestly, is fair enough). As a result, Affleck has decided to crack on in Thanosian "I'll do it myself" style and will now both call and be in the shots, with Anderson — still fresh from having finished a four season run on Sex Education — starring alongside in an as-yet-unknown role.

Beyond the very basic premise of Affleck's movie being a thriller that concerns a kidnapping, we know pretty much nothing more about what screenwriters Connor McIntyre and Billy Ray have in store for us here. But with shooting planned to take place in Los Angeles this year and Affleck keen to get the wheels turning, expect Animals to run wild on Netflix very soon. Hopefully our old pal Ben will have a nice holiday and a Dunkin' Donuts waiting for him on the other side of 2025!