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Major James Bond contender Theo James has popped up in the blood-soaked teaser trailer for a major horror film coming next year.
The star of Guy Ritchie’s The Gentleman – which has just been confirmed for a second season on Netflix – will take the lead in a new Stephen King movie adaptation.
Directed by Osgood Perkins, following up on his major success with low budget horror smash-hit Longlegs, starring Nicolas Cage, The Monkey is a terrifying short story penned by King.
Not only have the best-selling author’s works produced brilliant movies over the past several years, including Carrie, It, The Shining and non-horrors like The Shawshank Redemption, but filmmaker of the moment Perkins is also teaming up with producer James Wan.
Wan is, of course, the co-creator of the Saw and Insidious franchises, as well as The Conjuring universe – so it’s a horror dream-team collaboration that promises a lot of scares.
James, 39, plays twin brothers Bill and Hal in the film, who find their father’s old monkey toy in the attic, after which a series of gruesome deaths start.
The siblings decide to throw the toy away and move on with their lives, growing apart over the years.
The teaser trailer released this week starts by playing jaunty carnival-themed music that begins to slow down and warp as the monkey toy is shown, cast in shadow, before ominous drumming kicks off.
Furry paws confirm the drum belongs to the monkey, which has blood splattered over its top as the sticks speed up and a groan sounds.
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Cutting to Sanditon actor James, he is shown as one of the twins, covered in blood and quietly removing his glasses, revealing the clean skin beneath that was protected from what appears to have been a spraying onslaught.
The music cuts and we hear only the sound of his horrified breathing, as we see blood all over the drapes behind him and on his clothes.
Fans were gushing over the team-up that The Monkey offers. Especially following the cult success of Longlegs.
‘So seated my ass will become one with the leather,’ quipped X user Vesa, while @Spencertweets_2 added: ‘Yes, Theo James my man.’
The Monkey’s promising pedigree has already been dubbed ‘crazy’ and ‘insane’ aa fans shared how ‘hyped’ they were.
‘It’s gonna be crazy and awesome! Pure horror film magic from Perkins,’ enthused Petro Kruczynski on YouTube under the trailer, while @benbergin538 posted: ‘Can’t wait. Deffo checking this one out. Love Stephen King’s work.’
‘In Neon and Osgood Perkins, we trust,’ joked @benjilanc, referencing the US production and distribution studio behind The Monkey, which was also behind Longlegs.
‘James Wan & Osgood Perkins TEAMED UP? We were awed by Longlegs and already this!’ commented @beardedbloke2521.
The Monkey is a departure for James, who rose to fame thanks to the Divergent film franchise, but has also appeared in Downton Abbey, two Underworld films and the 2022 TV adaptation of The Time Traveller’s Wife with Rose Leslie.
He also appeared as the philandering Cameron Sullivan in season two of The White Lotus.
The actor has also been firmly entrenched in the Bond conversation now for months, following Daniel Craig handing in his licence to kill with 2021’s No Time to Die.
Alongside front-runner Aaron Taylor-Johnson, James has featured in many lists alongside the likes of Henry Cavill, Bridgerton star Jonathan Bailey and James Norton.
In July he was given odds of 6/1 with betideas.com and 7/1 with Coral that he’d be the next Bond.
However, filmmaker Perkins has kept him busy with something entirely different in the meantime thanks to The Monkey.
Despite the scariness, Perkins has also described the movie as far more comedic than anything he’s done before.
‘It’s feeling more like an old John Landis movie or a Joe Dante movie or a Robert Zemeckis movie,’ Perkins told The Hollywood Reporter while promoting Longlegs earlier this summer.
‘I saw an opportunity to make a wry, absurdist comedy about death. It’s about the very basic fact that we all die – and how f***ing funny and weird and impossible and surreal is that s**t? And to come at it from a tragicomedy kind of voice felt like it fit.’
He also claimed that as The Monkey fitted into ‘the haunted toy or evil toy subgenre’, he ‘couldn’t imagine doing a serious one of those’ as it rang ‘utterly false’.
The Monkey is set to release in cinemas on February 21, 2025.
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