{"id":43129,"date":"2026-10-28T05:20:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T09:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=43129"},"modified":"2026-10-24T14:44:29","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T18:44:29","slug":"animals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=43129","title":{"rendered":"“Animals” (2026) directed by Ben Affleck, starring Ben Affleck, Kerry Washington, Gillian Anderson and Steven Yeun \/ Z-View"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Animals <\/i>(2026)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director: Ben Affleck<\/strong><\/p>\n

Screenplay: \u00a0Connor O. McIntyre, Billy Ray, Ben Affleck<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stars:\u00a0 Ben Affleck, Kerry Washington, Gillian Anderson, Adriana Paz, Ray Fisher, Luis Gerardo M\u00e9ndez <\/strong>and Steven Yeun.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tagline: Power can’t protect you.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Plot…<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Mark Kimball is an independent candidate running for Mayor of Los Angeles.\u00a0 The race has been an uphill battle that’s put a strain on his marriage to Abigail.<\/p>\n

With election day near, Mark is just a few percentage points from the lead.\u00a0 To get money needed to put him over the top, Mark secretly signs over his family’s savings.\u00a0 Once he wins, the money will be paid back.<\/p>\n

Then the unthinkable happens. Mark and Abigail’s son is kidnapped.\u00a0 The kidnapper’s ransom demand is out of reach since Mark secretly used the money for his campaign.\u00a0 If they go to the police, the kidnappers promise to kill their son.<\/p>\n

With nowhere else to turn Mark and Abigail enlist the aid of Dayle.\u00a0 Dayle works outside the law, but has success in dealing with kidnappers.\u00a0 Dayle doesn’t come cheap and payment delays carry a high interest rate.\u00a0 As Dayle questions Mark and Abigail secrets held by each are exposed.<\/p>\n

Then something unexpected happens.\u00a0 And it changes everything.<\/p>\n

Thoughts (beware of spoilers)\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Animals<\/em> was originally going to star Matt Damon and Jennifer Garner (Ben Affleck’s ex-wife) with Affleck still directing.\u00a0 When filming was delayed, Damon had to back out.\u00a0 With Damon out, Affleck decided to take the starring role.\u00a0 Garner then decided to pass on her role.\u00a0 Kerry Washington was then signed.<\/p>\n

Just weeks before filming was to start, Affleck halted production.\u00a0 Highest 2 Lowest<\/em> directed by Spike Lee, starring Denzel Washington had been announced.\u00a0 The plots of Animals<\/em> and Highest 2 Lowest<\/em> were similar.\u00a0 Affleck decided to make changes to Animals to make it a more morally ambiguous drama exploring marriage, public image, and personal integrity<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Gillian Anderson is excellent as Dayle.\u00a0 It’s my favorite of Gillian Anderson role.<\/p>\n

Animals <\/i>(2026)<\/strong> rates 4 of 5 stars.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Animals (2026) Director: Ben Affleck Screenplay: \u00a0Connor O. McIntyre, Billy Ray, Ben Affleck Stars:\u00a0 Ben Affleck, Kerry Washington, Gillian Anderson,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17,51,54,65,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebs","category-crime","category-movies","category-trivia","category-z-view"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43129"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43173,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43129\/revisions\/43173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}