James Van Der Beek is an evil pastor in our first look at “The Gates”, one of his final roles before his death

In one of his final roles, James Van Der Beek is a very different character from what fans are used to seeing him play.

Lionsgate has released the first look at its upcoming thriller The Gates, which marks one of Van Der Beek’s last theatrical projects before his death at 48 years old on Feb. 11 following his diagnosis with stage 3 colorectal cancer.

The film stars Mason Gooding, Algee Smith, and Keith Powers as college students on a road trip gone wrong after an ill-advised shortcut through a remote gated community leads them to witness a murder that Van Der Beek’s sinister pastor character Jacob commits. Trapped behind the titular barriers, the trio find themselves blamed, hunted, and fractured by their own belief systems throughout the night.

Van Der Beek is terrifying in the movie’s trailer as he is revealed to be the community’s cunning patriarch, a man who holds the entire community under his influence.

The trailer’s release comes a week after Van Der Beek’s wife, Kimberly Van Der Beek, with whom he shared six children, announced his death. The Dawson’s Creek alum originally announced his cancer diagnosis in November 2024, announcing that he had been officially diagnosed a year before.

Van Der Beek continued acting after the diagnosis, having recently starred in three Tubi original movies — Sidelined: The QB and Me, Sidelined: Rewind With Noah and Siena, and Sidelined 2: Intercepted — and in the shows Walker and Overcompensating. He is also set to appear in the upcoming Legally Blonde prequel series, Elle, as a recurring guest star alongside Lexi Minetree, who plays the title role.

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The Gates director John Burr recently reflected on his time working with Van Der Beek in a statement to Entertainment Weekly, sharing sympathy and love for the late actor’s family and thanking them “for granting us the precious time with him that we had.”

“James was a legend,” he said. “I first met him at a cafe just outside Austin to chat about the script for a film we wanted to work on together. His charisma and energy were evident immediately.”

Burr continued, “He was a man of great conviction, and it was clear that he approached life with a unique sense of passion and dedication that he applied to everything from his work, to his family, to the life he’d built in rural Texas after the early success of his career.”

Burr added that he and the rest of The Gates‘ cast and crew were “incredibly fortunate” to have worked with Van Der Beek. “He brought experience and perspective to the role, and he built profound relationships with his fellow cast members and with the crew,” the Muse director said. “And while he was deeply dedicated to his performance as the flawed, amoral antagonist of our story, between scenes he effortlessly morphed back into the grounded, charming conversationalist he was at his core.”

“He never missed an opportunity to speak glowingly of his wife, brag about his kids, laugh about the lighter moments in his career, or to ask others what was going on in their lives,” Burr recalled. “His energy was contagious. None of us knew that he was already deep into his battle, and we were all shocked to learn with the rest of the world about his diagnosis.”

The director revealed that he and Van Der Beek exchanged “periodic text messages” in the last few months before the actor’s death, noting, “His words were filled with energy and punctuated with exclamation points even as his health must have been in decline.”

“Despite knowing his diagnosis, the news of his passing was shocking,” Burr said. “In the minutes and hours after it broke, countless members of the production team reached out, expressing grief and sharing memories, bonding in our shared love and sadness. And thus, even though he is no longer with us, his energy somehow feels like it lives on, bringing us all back together again, inspiring us to live life the way he did. I am grateful for that.”

“And so,” he concluded, “on behalf of the entire filmmaking team, I’d like to express our heartbreak at James’ passing and our joy to have been so lucky to know him.”

The Gates opens in theaters March 13. Watch the first-look trailer for it above.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly