The trailer for the Steven Spielberg-directed remake of the Oscar-winning original musical, West Side Story has officially been released.
The two-minute trailer shows off the remake of the classic story based on the original Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim musical. This isn’t the first time we’ve gotten a look at the Steven Spielberg remake as the first teaser premiered at the Academy Awards back in April. West Side Story casts Baby Driver lead, Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler as the movie’s two leads, Tony and Maria. They fall for each other in a classic forbidden love story with the fierce rivalries Jets and Sharks in between them set in 1957 New York.
This reimagining of West Side Story will also star Ariana DeBose (as Anita), David Alvarez (as Bernardo), Mike Faist (as Riff), Josh Andrés Rivera (as Chino), Ana Isabelle (as Rosalía), Corey Stoll (as Lieutenant Schrank), Brian d’Arcy James (as Officer Krupke) and Rita Moreno (as Valentina, who owns the corner store that Tony works at).
The original 1961 musical was a huge cultural touchstone when it came out and won ten Oscars which includes Best Picture. The screenplay of the remake was written by Tony Kushner which will add new scenes and delivers different lines from classic moments in the original film. Steven Spielberg, Kristie Macosko Krieger and Kevin McCollum are producing the remake under the 20th Century Studios banner with Disney handling distribution.
The filming of the 2021 movie finished back in October 2019, the release has been delayed a couple of times because of the pandemic but is set to release in theatres later this year. When casting for the film Spielburg pursued only wanting Hispanic actors to play the Hispanic characters in the remake.
“This story is not only a product of its time, but that time has returned, and it’s returned with a kind of social fury,” Spielberg said in a Vanity Fair interview last year. “I really wanted to tell that Puerto Rican, Nuyorican experience of basically the migration to this country and the struggle to make a living, and to have children, and to battle against the obstacles of xenophobia and racial prejudice.”
Spielberg revealed that 20 of the 33 Puerto Rican characters in the West Side Story remake are played by actors that are “specifically Puerto Rican or of Puerto Rican descent.”
“They brought an authenticity… themselves, and everything they believe and everything about them — they brought that to the work. There was so much interaction between the cast wanting to be able to commit to the Puerto Rican experience. They all represent, I think, a diversity, both within the Puerto Rican, Nuyorican community as well as the broader Latinx community. And they took that seriously,” Spielberg said.
The Walt Disney Company will release West Side Story in theatres on December 10th.
