Ethan Hawke to Star in Jungle Thriller The Last of the Tribe
Ethan Hawke is heading back into morally dark territory, this time trading haunted houses and masked killers for the unforgiving depths of the Amazon rainforest. The actor, known to horror fans for The Black Phone and Sinister, is set to star opposite Orlando Bloom in the survival thriller The Last of the Tribe according to a report from Variety.
Directed by Claudio Borrelli and written by Mark Bailey, the film is based on investigative journalist Monte Reel’s 2010 novel. Set deep in the Amazon, the story blends psychological tension, corporate intrigue, and survival drama in a landscape where nature itself is as dangerous as any human threat.
Ethan Hawke’s Role in The Last of the Tribe
Hawke will play William Phelan, a former Chicago police officer whose life has veered far off course. Now working as a corporate gun for hire, Phelan is sent into the rainforest to investigate a suspicious death. What begins as a routine assignment quickly spirals when he encounters the last surviving member of an Indigenous tribe.
That meeting forces Phelan to confront not only the brutal realities of the jungle, but also the moral cost of the work he has been doing. The film positions him as a man caught between corporate interests, personal guilt, and a rapidly closing world.
Brazilian Indigenous activist Zaya Guarani is also set to appear, bringing contemporary relevance and cultural grounding to the story’s themes of survival, land exploitation, and identity.
Ethan Hawke’s Horror Background Strengthens the Thriller
Hawke has become one of modern horror’s most dependable leading men, which makes him a natural fit for a morally heavy thriller like The Last of the Tribe.
In Sinister, he played a true crime writer whose obsession with disturbing home movies drags his family into the orbit of one of the most unsettling modern horror villains. The film’s oppressive atmosphere and Hawke’s increasingly desperate performance helped make it a standout supernatural thriller of the 2010s.
More recently, Hawke delivered a chilling performance as The Grabber in The Black Phone, a masked child abductor whose eerie mix of menace and vulnerability made the character instantly iconic. The film was a major box office and critical success, and The Black Phone 2 is already in development, further cementing Hawke’s status as a key figure in contemporary genre cinema.
That experience with psychological horror, moral tension, and slow-burn dread feeds directly into the tone of The Last of the Tribe, which leans on character conflict as much as physical danger.
The Creative Team Behind The Last of the Tribe
The film is backed by a strong international production team. Academy Award winner Edward Saxon, known for producing The Silence of the Lambs, is producing alongside Steve Schwartz and Paula Mae Schwartz for Chockstone Pictures. Mark Bailey, Ethan Hawke, and Ryan Hawke are also producing.
Brazilian production powerhouse O2 Filmes’ Fernando Meirelles, director of City of God, serves as executive producer, further tying the project to Latin American filmmaking roots. International sales are being handled by Protagonist Pictures, with the film set to be presented at the European Film Market in Berlin.
A Jungle Thriller With Timely Themes
Director Claudio Borrelli has described the Amazon rainforest as both a hostile force and a place of fragile beauty. The setting is not just backdrop but central to the story, representing the conflict between nature and human exploitation.
Producers have emphasized that while The Last of the Tribe is structured as a tense, old-school thriller, it also addresses urgent real-world issues, including the destruction of the Amazon and the impact on Indigenous communities. This gives the film a contemporary edge that goes beyond standard survival cinema.
Ethan Hawke Continues His Dark Career Streak
With Orlando Bloom joining Hawke and a story rooted in ethical conflict, corporate power, and survival against nature, The Last of the Tribe looks set to continue Hawke’s run of intense, psychologically charged roles.
If his recent horror résumé is anything to go by, audiences should expect a film that is as uncomfortable emotionally as it is dangerous physically. Hawke rarely picks easy journeys, and this one sounds like another descent into difficult terrain, both literal and moral.
