A new “special look” at director Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, featuring glimpses at the musical numbers and only the bare minimum of Ansel Elgort, was shared online on Wednesday. Based on the 1957 Broadway musical of the same name by Arthur Laurents, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, West Side Story is slated for a prime, awards-friendly release on December 10.
The one-minute video, essentially a new trailer, has a lot of the same footage that we saw in the teaser that was released three months ago. The song Somewhere plays in the background as the central conflict, inspired by William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, is established. The new look appears to focus on Rachel Zegler’s Maria Vasquez, as she finds herself drawn to Elgort’s Tony in 1950s New York. The video ends with a tease of a gang war, and that instantly-iconic overhead shot, filmed by Spielberg’s longtime cinematographer Janusz Kamiński.
In a career that includes political dramas and war epics, screwball comedies and a motion capture adventure, West Side Story is Spielberg’s first musical. The film arrives just a few months after another big, buzz-heavy musical, director Jon M. Chu’s adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes’ In the Heights. That film, despite the tremendous buzz and excellent reviews, underperformed at the box office.
But film musicals, generally speaking, have been doing well in the last few years. It remains to be seen if some thematic overlap with In the Heights — West Side Story is also a New York-set story about the Latinx community — will in any way impact the prospects of Spielberg’s film.
In addition to Zegler and Elgort, West Side Story also features stars Ariana DeBose, David Alvarez, Mike Faist, Corey Stoll and Brian d'Arcy James. Rita Moreno, one of only three artists to be honored with Academy, Emmy, Grammy, Tony and Peabody Awards, stars as Valentina, who owns the corner store in which Tony works. Moreno won her Oscar for playing Anita in the 1961 adaptation of the musical, directed by Robert Wise.
Here’s the official synopsis for Spielberg’s West Side Story, and you can watch the “special look” below:
Directed by Academy Award-winner Steven Spielberg, from a screenplay by Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winner Tony Kushner, West Side Story tells the classic tale of fierce rivalries and young love in 1957 New York City.