Chennai, Apr 3 (IANS): The trailer of director Nelson Dilipkumar's explosive action thriller 'Beast' which was released on Saturday evening has garnered a massive 24 million views in less than 18 hours of having been released on YouTube.

On Saturday evening, the makers of the film released a trailer of the much-awaited action thriller that showed Vijay playing a character called Vijayaraghavan inside a mall that it is taken seige by terrorists.

The trailer triggered huge excitement among fans who gathered outside theatres to watch it on the giant screen. The trailer, which was sharply released by the makers at 6 in the evening, garnered a whopping 2 million views in a matter of just 15 minutes flat. Over 2,60,000 people gave the thumbs up to the trailer in the first 15 minutes.

The numbers only seemed to steadily grow from there. By noon on Sunday, the trailer had got a whopping 24.85 million views with over two million people liking the trailer.

The trailer shows terrorists taking seige of a mall called the East Coast Mall. The government appoints a negotiator (Selvaraghavan), who is relieved to know that an Indian soldier called Veeraraghavan (Vijay), considered to be among the best of spies, is inside the mall. The trailer gives a glimpse into the action sequences the film has in store for us.

The film, which has Pooja Hegde playing the female lead, is scheduled to hit screens on April 13.