Naman Shrestha
In the Ben Affleck directorial, Netflix’s crime drama movie ‘Animals,’ Affleck also stars as Mark Kimball, a Los Angeles mayoral candidate who leads a seemingly idyllic life with his wife, Abigail, and their son, Denny Kimball, in a luxurious residence in LA’s lavish suburbia. Their picture-perfect lives are disrupted when Denny gets kidnapped, and the kidnapper demands a huge amount of ransom payment in exchange for their son’s life and safety.
What complicates the situation is that Mark and Abigail have invested most of their money in his mayoral campaign. So, looking for ways to pay the ransom, the couple is forced to take extreme measures that could threaten their marriage and reputation. Along the way, a series of dark and dirty secrets is also exposed, with the potential to ruin their entire lives. Featuring Affleck, Kerry Washington, Steven Yeun, and Gillian Anderson, the political psychological thriller is set in Los Angeles, California, and the Kimball household, which harbors dark truths about the family beneath its unassuming facade.
Animals Filming Locations
Production on Ben Affleck’s ‘Animals’ was conducted primarily in California, particularly in the sprawling city of Los Angeles. According to reports, principal photography for the crime drama got underway in March 2025 under a couple of working titles — ‘Be Gentlemen’ and ‘Animals of Los Angeles’ — and continued for a month or so before concluding in April of the same year. The cast and crew regathered in July 2025 to film additional scenes for the final cut of the movie.
Los Angeles, California
The home of Hollywood, Los Angeles, served as the primary production location for ‘Animals.’ Since the suspenseful tale unfolds in LA itself, a layer of authenticity is automatically injected into the film’s visuals. In April 2025, Ben Affleck and the rest of the cast and crew, including Steven Yeun, were spotted taping several pivotal sequences in and around The Original Farmers Market at 6333 West 3rd Street in Los Angeles. The city’s iconic storm drain system and the Los Angeles River also hosted the production of multiple exterior scenes. During the reshoots in July 2025, the filming unit returned to the drain system for additional shooting. To lens various scenes involving the Kimball household, the production team of ‘Animals’ seemingly took over the affluent residential neighborhood of the Hollywood Hills.
The establishing and aerial shots of the City of Angels feature multiple landmarks and buildings, such as the Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles City Hall, Wilshire Grand Center, U.S. Bank Tower, Two California Plaza, and Wells Fargo Tower. As mentioned earlier, LA serves as a major character in the narrative, highlighting the theme of perception versus reality through its larger-than-life cityscape. Besides the Ben Affleck directorial, LA and its surrounding areas feature in many other movies and TV shows. Some of the notable ones include ‘Promising Young Woman,’ ‘The Silence of the Lambs,’ ‘Pulp Fiction,’ ‘Crime 101,’ ‘The Usual Suspects,’ ‘Prison Break,’ ‘The Lincoln Lawyer,’ ‘Sons of Anarchy,’ and ‘The Drop: A Snowfall Saga.’
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