Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington reuniting for new Sam Esmail Netflix film

Oscar winners Denzel Washington and Julia Roberts will reunite to star in forthcoming Netflix drama Leave The World Behind from director Sam Esmail.

The Hollywood actors, who starred together in 1993 legal thriller The Pelican Brief, are set to appear in the movie adaptation of Rumaan Alam’s upcoming novel of the same name.

Roberts previously worked with Esmail on Amazon’s Homecoming and the pair are currently developing a Watergate TV series, inspired by the podcast series Slow Burn.

Leave The World Behind tells a “magnetic story about two families, strangers to each other, who are forced together on a long weekend gone terribly wrong”, according to Netflix. The novel will be released on 6 October.

Roberts, who won the best actress Oscar for Erin Brockovich, will play the mother of one family while Washington, a best actor winner for his portrayal of a corrupt police officer in Training Day, stars as the father of the other.

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Leave The World Behind will explore themes of parenthood, race and class, Netflix said.

It will be written and directed by Esmail, best known for his work on TV series such as Mr Robot and Homecoming.

The news follows a flurry of high profile new projects announced by Netflix, including spy thriller The Gray Man from the Russo brothers, which will star Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans, and Chicken Run 2 from Aardman.