One of the funnier aspects of the Obamas’ post-presidency return to public life is the very existence of Higher Ground Productions, which is their production company that acts as a kind of feeder system for Netflix’s unending content churn. You probably know their output from their time with Spotify, when Barack and the Boss teamed up to… talk shop on a podcast, which is audio that we genuinely can’t believe exists, but they also acquire movies and make television shows every now and then. This year’s a big year for them, though: They have two narrative features that were produced, not just acquired, by Higher Ground, ready to release. First is a stately drama about Bayard Rustin entitled, appropriately, Rustin, which seems good and is also what you might expect from the kind of activism-based cinema that the Obamas have been bringing to screen with their documentary releases. The second is pretty out-of-left-field: It’s Sam Esmali’s Leave the World Behind, which is an “apocalyptic thriller.”
If you want a good idea of what this movie is going to be like, replace the gay couple from Knock at the Cabin with Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke and replace Dave Bautista with Mahershala Ali. We’re serious. A stranger visits a vacationing family with a message of doom. We’d say this was a Missing in Action/Rambo: First Blood Part II situation, but they’re both based off of popular novels that also came out around the same time. Still, it’s genuinely kind of weird to think of either producing group from either film being a Golan/Globus equivalent. Anyway, Netflix has a trailer for the project, and you should check it out just to see if it really is “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Shyamalan!”
Peep it:
Here’s a synopsis:
“In this apocalyptic thriller from award-winning writer and director Sam Esmail (‘Mr. Robot’), Amanda (Academy Award winner Julia Roberts) and her husband Clay (Academy Award nominee Ethan Hawke), rent a luxurious home for the weekend with their kids, Archie (Charlie Evans) and Rose (Farrah Mackenzie). Their vacation is soon upended when two strangers — G.H. (Academy Award winner Mahershala Ali) and his daughter Ruth (Myha’la) — arrive in the night, bearing news of a mysterious cyberattack and seeking refuge in the house they claim is theirs. The two families reckon with a looming disaster that grows more terrifying by the minute, forcing everyone to come to terms with their places in a collapsing world. Based on the National Book Award-nominated novel by Rumaan Alam, ‘Leave the World Behind’ is produced by Esmail Corp, Red Om Films, and executive produced by Higher Ground Productions.”
Leave the World Behind arrives in select theaters on November 22, before it rolls out to all Netflix subscribers on December 8.