The first trailer for Anthony Mackie’s Boulder-filmed movie, “Elevation,” dropped Thursday, and it’s a doozy.
Mackie, best known as winged Avenger Falcon and the new Captain America in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, plays a single father in the post-apocalyptic Rocky Mountains — a trope that’s getting another flogging here, following a decades-long string of movies, TVs and video games that depict Colorado as ground zero for nuclear holocausts, zombies and hostile aliens.
In the “Elevation” trailer, Mackie and a pair of women “venture from the safety of their homes to face monstrous creatures to save the life of a young boy,” according to a studio synopsis.
The trailer opens with a scene-setting elevation number against a black screen (10,458, which is about twice Boulder’s elevation of 5,430. Mackie’s unnamed character embraces his daughter as she runs toward him from a cabin, and a brief flashback shows explosions in a lush pine forest, informing us that civilization ended three years ago.
“We lost our homes, our communities, and most of the people we loved,” Mackie’s character says in a voiceover. Elevation numbers tick down like a wall clock as the group descends their high country perch in the 2:17 trailer. “We still don’t know why above 8,000 feet we’re safe.”
Of course, Mackie must descend out of the safety zone into Boulder for life-saving medical treatment for his daughter, Hunter, which sets in motion the race against “earth’s new apex predators,” as Maddie Hasson’s unnamed character calls them. “Humanity’s final fight begins at 8,000 feet” is a very Colorado tagline, too.
The movie, also co-starring Morena Baccarin (“Deadpool,” “Serenity”), is produced by some of the same folks as “a Quiet Place” and “The Purse,” both franchise-birthing titles that drew viewers to theaters en masse. “Elevation,” which is releasing exclusively in theaters on Nov. 8, seems both grittier and more action-oriented than those, but we’ll see when it’s finally here.
Principal photography began in November 2022 in various Colorado locations, and finished up in late March 2023. At the time it started, “Elevation” was confirmed as “the biggest production to come to Colorado since (Quentin Tarantino’s 2015 film) ‘The Hateful Eight,’” wrote Colorado film commissioner Donald Zuckerman in an email to The Denver Post.
The film was mostly shot around Golden and Boulder, with George Nolfi directing, and Brad Fuller as principal producer, Zuckerman said. It cost about $18 million while employing nearly 300 cast and crew, according to the Denver Business Journal.
Watch the new trailer below.