First Look Unveiled of Road Trip Thriller ‘The Gates’ From Lionsgate Premiere

A heinous crime unfolds in road trip thriller, The Gates, and a community blames three Black men before sorting out the facts.

The film follows college students Derek, Kevin and Tyon, played by Mason Gooding (Scream), Algee Smith (The Hate U Give), and Keith Powers (The New Edition Story). The men’s lives get turned upside down when they witness a murder after taking an ill-advised shortcut through a remote gated community.

The men “find themselves trapped behind the walls” of the community, blamed and hunted for the crime. The real perpetrator, played by James Van Der Beek, is hiding in plain sight, but “holds the entire community under his influence.”

Lionsgate’s specialty arm, Lionsgate Premiere, is releasing the thriller from producers Nancy Leopardi, Ross Kohn, and Gary Glushon.

The film marks the second feature from writer-director John Burr following the release of his 2017 supernatural thriller Muse.

“This script is the most personal story I’ve ever written,” Burr said in a statement. “It’s set in the community I lived in for the first half of my life, and its characters are an amalgam of myself and my closest friends growing up.”

The Texas native notes that as a biracial child who identified “as half-black,” he was able to navigate two worlds and occasionally benefited from “being able to pass as white.”

“My perspectives often did not align with those of my white friends, while my experiences did not always align with those of my Black friends,” Burr stated. “Trusting authority figures was a privilege. Understanding that not all of my friends had that privilege was a journey.”

Executive producers  on the film include Michael Cassutt, John Harris, J. Todd Harris, Kamala Avila-Salmon, Arlie Day, Mike Page, Andy Dube, Courtney Henggeler, Eric Belgau, Damian Horan, David Gendron, Ali Jazayeri, Viviana Zarragoitia, and Mason Gooding.

Production was made possible through the Oklahoma Film & Music incentive as well as the Cherokee Film incentive. Rebellium Films oversaw production, with financing provided by TPC.

The Gates arrives in select theaters on Friday, March 13, 2026.