Mark Wahlberg teams up with director Mel Gibson for ‘Flight Risk,’ which costars Michelle Dockery and Topher Grace. The movie is in theaters October 18

Topher Grace and Michelle Dockery are stuck on a plane with Mark Wahlberg in their new movie Flight Risk — and Wahlberg’s character is not who he says he is.

On Thursday, June 27, Lionsgate shared the trailer for Flight Risk, Wahlberg’s upcoming movie with Braveheart filmmaker Mel Gibson, exclusively with PEOPLE.

The tense trailer sets up the premise, as Wahlberg’s pilot takes off with Dockery’s U.S. Marshal character and Grace’s fugitive in custody to bring the pair to New York City for a criminal trial. Once the group are in the air, though, Dockery’s character slowly realizes her pilot is a hit man whose objective is to 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 Grace’s character.

While speaking with PEOPLE about the new movie, written by Jared Rosenberg, Wahlberg points out that he has not portrayed a villain on the big screen since 1996’s Fear with Reese Witherspoon.

“It was one of those things where the character just jumped off the page and to really kind of switch it up,” he says. “You got three people on the plane; they probably expect me to be the kind of guy who’s gonna save the day and within the first 15 minutes you really get into it.”

Mark Wahlberg in “Flight Risk”.  COURTESY OF LIONSGATE

“But it really was all about playing that kind of character, which for me, if you don’t have a great villain, it doesn’t work,” he adds. “But I kind of wanted to push it a little bit more. We had a lot of fun.”

Flight Risk reunites Wahlberg, 53, with Gibson, 68, who last made a movie as a director with the 2016 Oscar-winning World War II film Hacksaw Ridge. Wahlberg and Gibson previously acted together in movies like 2022’s Father Stu and 2017’s Daddy’s Home 2.

Michelle Dockery in Flight Risk.  COURTESY OF LIONSGATE

“We had talked about doing some other stuff while we were shooting Daddy’s Home and Father Stu, but then this kind of came and he sent me the script and I just responded right away,” Wahlberg says. “He didn’t even say which role. For me, there was only one role to play.”

COURTESY OF LIONSGATE

Wahlberg also spoke about his surprising shaved head with PEOPLE while discussing the new movie, saying, “the most priceless thing was seeing my wife’s face when I took my hat off after getting the hair cut for work that day.”

Flight Risk will mark Wahlberg’s third film to release in 2024. He most recently appeared in Arthur the King in March and will also hit screens via Netflix this summer with Halle Berry in The Union.

Flight Risk is in theaters Oct. 18.