{"id":2292919,"date":"2026-02-21T18:32:37","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T18:32:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2292919"},"modified":"2026-02-21T18:32:37","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T18:32:37","slug":"james-van-der-beek-stars-as-villain-for-final-film-role-in-the-gates-the-mercury-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/james-van-der-beek-stars-as-villain-for-final-film-role-in-the-gates-the-mercury-news\/","title":{"rendered":"James Van Der Beek stars as villain for final film role in \u2018The Gates\u2019 \u2013 The Mercury News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>For his final film role, <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/2026\/02\/17\/james-van-der-beek-wife-once-owed-hundreds-thousands-tax-debt\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">James Van Der Beek<\/a> transforms into a sinister pastor named Jacob in the upcoming thriller \u201cThe Gates.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=rooCFaczeXQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">A trailer for the movie<\/a> was released on Wednesday, just one week after Van Der Beek\u2019s wife, Kimberly, announced <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/2026\/02\/11\/james-van-der-beek-dies-dawsons-creek-cancer\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">his death on Feb. 11 from colorectal cancer<\/a>. He was 48.<\/p>\n<p>The film also stars Mason Gooding, Keith Powers and Algee Smith as a trio of friends on a \u201croad trip gone wrong,\u201d according to the movie\u2019s description.<\/p>\n<p>Rather than sit in traffic, the group decides to take \u201can ill-advised shortcut through a remote gated community, where they find themselves trapped behind the walls\u201d after they witness Van Der Beek\u2019s Jacob commit a murder.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOver the course of the night, they find themselves blamed, hunted and fractured by their own differing belief systems, while the perpetrator emerges as the cunning patriarch that holds the entire community under his influence,\u201d the synopsis reads.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"jeg_video_container jeg_video_content\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Gates (2026) Official Trailer - Mason Gooding, Algee Smith, James Van Der Beek\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rooCFaczeXQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p>An intense Van Der Beek appears on several occasions throughout the trailer, oftentimes threatening violence and bragging of his power.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have been called upon to lead this community,\u201d he says in the clip. \u201cThose boys seek to destroy us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a statement to Collider, \u201cThe Gates\u201d writer and <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/collider.com\/the-gates-trailer-mason-gooding-james-van-der-beek-horror-thriller\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">director John Burr remembered Van Der Beek<\/a> as a \u201clegend,\u201d going on to describe how \u201chis charisma and energy were evident immediately\u201d when they first met up to discuss the project.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were incredibly fortunate to have worked with him on this film,\u201d Burr said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe brought experience and perspective to the role, and he built profound relationships with his fellow cast members and with the crew,\u201d he continued. \u201cWhile 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Gates\u201d is set to hit theaters on March 13.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.mercurynews.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For his final film role, James Van Der Beek transforms into a sinister pastor named Jacob in the upcoming thriller \u201cThe Gates.\u201d A trailer for the movie was released on Wednesday, just one week after Van Der Beek\u2019s wife, Kimberly, announced his death on Feb. 11 from colorectal cancer. He was 48. The film also [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2289948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[21751,241467,21741,21799,308544,349101,21912,21738,22482,21913,340931],"class_list":["post-2292919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-celebrities","tag-coffee-break","tag-entertainment","tag-film","tag-latest-headlines","tag-morning-wire","tag-movies","tag-news","tag-things-to-do","tag-tv","tag-tv-streaming"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/James-Van-Der-Beek-stars-as-villain-for-final-film.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2292919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2292919"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2292919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2292920,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2292919\/revisions\/2292920"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2289948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2292919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2292919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2292919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}