Everything Ludicrous Thing About ‘Boy Kills World’ Just Has Me More Excited

Sam Raimi’s excellently titled new film Boy Kills World promises high-octane violence, political satire, and dark humor in equal measures. Here’s everything we know about the upcoming dystopian thriller.

Boy Kills World release date and trailer?

Boy Kills World will land in cinemas on April 26, 2024. The first trailer is out, and frankly, it’s unhinged in the best possible way. “Do you know how hard it is to get a cereal company to sponsor mass murder?”

There’s also this earlier proof of concept video shared on Twitter, if you need a little more to tide you over until it’s out in cinemas.

What is Boy Kills World about?

After a plausibly ludicrous, or ludicrously plausible, fascist regime takes hold and murders The Boy’s family, he swears vengeance. Rendered deaf and nonverbal due to the trauma, he goes into the forest, where he finds someone to train him and spends years building up his strength and fighting skills in order to take down the ruling Van Der Koy family and their cartoonishly (yet increasingly realistic) evil government. With side characters that feel straight out of a comic book or video game, to go with the video game narrator in The Boy’s head, Boy Kills World features incredible fight scenes, wryly subverted tropes, and corporate sponsored, Hunger Games-esque mass executions that feel especially on the nose right now.

Who is starring in Boy Kills World?

Bill Skarsgård takes center stage as the eponymous Boy, while the twins Cameron and Nicholas Crovetti from Big Little Lies both play versions of his younger self. Show-stealing June 27 is being played by Lala Land’s Jessica Rothe, and Star Wars alum Yayan Ruhian has been cast as The Mentor, who trains the young Boy. Famke Jansson of X2 fame will be playing the big boss villain, Hilda Van Der Koy, fascist dictator and leader of the murderous Van Der Koy family.

Notable side characters include Stranger Things’ Brett Gilman as Gideon Van Der Koy, Beast’s Sharlto Copely as Glen Van Der Koy, Downton Abbey’s Michelle Dockery as Melanie Van Der Koy, Quinn Copeland from 2021’s Punky Brewster reboot as Mina, and Isaiah Mustafa from It: Chapter Two as Benny.

Who’s behind Boy Kills World?

Boy Kills World is director Moritz Mohr’s debut film. Iconic Evil Dead and Spider-Man director Sam Raimi is producing the film, with Homeland’s Reza Brojerdi as executive producer. Sam Raimi, Roy Lee, Zainab Azizi, and Simon Swart also have directorial credits, while Arend Remmers and Tyler Burton Smith are listed as writers. Charis Baleson of Raised by Wolves is the art director and Peter Matjasko of Hausen is the cinematographer, responsible for the graphic novel feel a lot of the shots have.

(featured image: Raimi Productions)