Denzel Washington captures an ominous mood in the new teaser-trailer for “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” co-starring Oscar winner Frances McDormand and helmed by a solo Joel Coen.
The iconic, multi-award-winning director — now working separate from brother Ethan Coen for the first time since he announced his hiatus from film in August — went with a black-and-white motif for his cinematic adaptation for William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” a theatrical critique of blind political ambition and megalomania.
It’s also the first time dramatic heavyweights McDormand, as Lady Macbeth, and Washington, playing the titular role, will share the screen. Corey Hawkins (“The Walking Dead”) also appears as Macbeth’s antagonist Macduff.
The brooding footage — the first look at the much anticipated Bard adaptation set to hit theaters on Dec. 25 before streaming on Apple+ — was trending hard on Twitter as of Tuesday afternoon.
The trailer comes on the heels of actress-producer McDormand’s two Oscar wins earlier this year for “Nomadland.” Meanwhile, two-time Academy Award-winning Washington was last seen alongside Rami Malek in this year’s neo-noir crime thriller “The Little Things.”
McDormand, 64, shed light on the significance of her joining Washington, 66, for this particular project during an Instagram Live discussion last year.
She said, “In Joel’s adaptation, we are exploring the age of the characters and in our adaptation the Macbeths are older. Both Denzel and I are older than what is often cast as the Macbeths. We’re postmenopausal, we’re past childbearing age. So that puts a pressure on their ambition to have the crown. I think the most important distinction is that it is their last chance for glory.”
Joel tapped Brendan Gleeson and Harry Melling, stars of penultimate Coen Brothers film “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” for the upcoming release, now in post-production. Moses Ingram (“The Queen’s Gambit”) and British actor Ralph Ineson (“Game of Thrones”) also star.
A24 will release “The Tragedy of Macbeth” in theaters on December 25, and later to stream on Apple TV+ on January 14, 2022. It’s also slated to kick-off the New York Film Festival on September 24.
