‘The Whisper Man’, the Highly-Anticipated Robert De Niro and Adam Scott Team-Up, Reveals First Trailer

Netflix has a knack for turning bestselling thrillers into star driven event movies, and its latest swing is aiming straight for late summer chills. The streamer’s lineup this year has leaned heavily on prestige names attached to genre material, and this new project fits that mold perfectly. Fans of psychological crime dramas have plenty of reason to be intrigued.

The film in question is ‘The Whisper Man’, based on Alex North’s New York Times bestselling novel of the same name. The story is drawn from North’s 2019 book and centers on a chilling premise involving a convicted serial killer tied to a string of child disappearances.

A first trailer for the film has now arrived, confirming that the psychological thriller stars Robert De Niro, Michelle Monaghan, and Adam Scott. The story follows Tom Kennedy, played by Scott, a widowed crime writer whose eight-year-old son is abducted, sending him to seek help from his estranged father Pete Willis, played by De Niro, a retired police detective who uncovers a connection between the disappearance and the decades-old case of a convicted serial killer known as the Whisper Man.

Monaghan rounds out the core trio as Amanda Beck, the lead detective assigned to investigate the boy’s disappearance.

James Ashcroft directed the film from a script by Ben Jacoby and Chase Palmer, with Hamish Linklater, Owen Teague, Acston Luca Porto, and Will Brill rounding out the cast. The stacked ensemble also reportedly includes Michael Keaton and John Carroll Lynch. Behind the camera, the project carries serious pedigree, since producers on the project included Anthony Russo, Joe Russo, Angela Russo-Otstot, Michael Disco, and Kassee Whiting, with Marcus Viscidi, Tim Connors, and Alex Leb serving as executive producers.

This marks Netflix and AGBO’s sixth collaboration, following other partnerships like ‘The Gray Man’, ‘The Electric State’, the ‘Extraction’ films, and the ‘Extraction’ spin-off series ‘Mercenary’. Speaking about the project on About Netflix, AGBO chief creative officer Angela Russo-Otstot said that ‘The Whisper Man’ is a gripping thriller, but at its core is a poignant and complex story of father and sons, adding that the studio is grateful to have one of the finest actors of his generation, Robert De Niro, anchoring that story with James Ashcroft directing.

The Motion Picture Association has rated the film R for bloody violence, disturbing images, suicide, language, and brief sexual references, signaling that this adaptation isn’t holding back on the novel’s darker material. For De Niro, the project continues his recent run in the streaming thriller space following ‘The Irishman’ and the series ‘Zero Day’, while Scott builds on the dramatic range he showed in ‘Severance’, and Monaghan adds to a résumé that recently included ‘The White Lotus’.

‘The Whisper Man’ is set to premiere globally on Netflix on August 28, and the marketing has already leaned hard into its unsettling playground rhyme as a piece of atmosphere building dread ahead of release. With a cast this loaded and a premise built on buried secrets clawing back to the surface, the pressure is on for the film to stick the landing. Does the trailer have you ready to lock your doors and press play, or are you already bracing for the Whisper Man to come knocking?