Jason Statham is back in action as a ruthless assassin in the upcoming thriller The Beekeeper.

The film follows “one man’s brutal campaign for vengeance takes on national stakes after he is revealed to be a former operative of a powerful and clandestine organization known as ‘Beekeepers,’” according to a press release.

The red band trailer — which dropped on Wednesday — shows Statham in full action mode as Mr. Clay, kicking and shooting his way through enemy territory alongside a cast, including Josh Hutcherson, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Minnie Driver, Bobby Naderi, Phylicia Rashad and Jeremy Irons.

The first scene in the trailer is rather peaceful — Mr. Clay has just created a garden with buzzing beehives for his neighbor (Rashad), who tells him, “This place was crabgrass and weeds and you brought it back to life.”

The tone shifts when it’s revealed that Hutcherson’s character runs a scam organization that swindled Mr. Clay’s neighbor out of her savings, who then tragically took her own life.

Mr. Clay walks up to a corporate building guarded by two suited men with guns, asking, “You know what they do here? Scamming the weakest in our society.”
 

“Buddy, I’m counting to three,” one of them says, to which Statham’s character replies, “One, two, three. There I did it for you,” before punching the men to the concrete and launching the trailer into a world of gunfire, helicopters and backflips against a backdrop of crime and justice.Directed by David Ayer (Suicide Squad) and written by Kurt Wimmer (Expend4bles), The Beekeeper promises to up the ante in the latest slam-bang explosion-fueld Jason Statham adventure, packed with one-liners like "I'm gonna burn this place to the ground" and "You're goddamn right I'm a problem."

The Beekeeper is only in theaters January 12, 2024