Following its first teaser trailer during the Oscars, Steven Spielberg’s remake of the classic musical West Side Story has shared the first full-length look at the film ahead of its December release.
The new preview — built around the musical’s centerpiece “Tonight” — captures the moment that star-crossed lovers Maria (Rachel Zegler) and Tony (Ansel Elgort) first lock eyes at a dance amid mounting tensions between rival gangs the Jets and the Sharks in Fifties New York City.
Rita Moreno, who co-starred in the 1961 cinematic adaptation as Anita, appears 50 years later as a different character — Valentina — in the Spielberg remake. “Life matters, even more than love,” her character tells Zegler’s Maria in the trailer; Moreno also serves as executive producer on the 2021 film.
Spielberg’s West Side Story touts all-star Broadway veterans like screenwriter Tony Kushner, choreographer Justin Peck and composer Jeanine Tesori, well as Los Angeles Philharmonic conductor Gustavo Dudamel, who re-recorded the film’s legendary Leonard Bernstein score.
In addition to Zegler and Elgort, the film stars Ariana DeBose (Anita), David Alvarez (Bernardo), Mike Faist (Riff), Josh Andrés Rivera (Chino), Ana Isabelle (Rosalía), Corey Stoll (Lieutenant Schrank), Maddie Ziegler (Velma), and Brian d’Arcy James (Officer Krupke).
After being delayed for nearly a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, West Side Story arrives in theaters only on December 10th.