Hugh Jackman has spent the majority of his career known as Wolverine, but before that, he made a living on the stage in musicals. Now that he's done with superheroes, he's back in the world of musicals. The Greatest Showman is a musical biopic about the life of P.T. Barnum, and now we have our first look at the new film. Like any movie based on a circus, the idea is to create a showstopping spectacular, and for a first trailer, they may have done that. Check out the first trailer below.
I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting with The Greatest Showman but I'm not sure this was it. Having said that, the trailer is actually quite impressive. The fact that the movie is a musical is actually a little hard to see from the trailer alone until you see one of the characters singing a few lines from the song that plays throughout the trailer. There is some dancing and obviously choreographed movement, but that's about it.
However, what we do get here is a surprisingly inspirational movie setup. We watch Hugh Jackman, as P.T. Barnum, lose his job and find himself at a crossroads, trying to provide for his family in a way that he feels is right. This leads him, through some situation not entirely clear, to get the idea of starting a circus. What's interesting is that the world of the circus doesn't exactly have the greatest reputation. What some might view as the exploitation of those not viewed as normal, the movie clearly wants you to see as Barnum giving them opportunities they might not otherwise have. It may be something of a tightrope for this movie to walk, but hey, the circus probably has somebody who can do that.
The music is also interesting because it's clearly leaning more on the pop side of things than the traditional musical show tunes sort of thing. This looks to be a bit more Moulin Rouge, and a bit less La La Land. It's another interesting choice. Not necessarily a bad decision, lots of people loved Moulin Rouge, but it's not what we were expecting._It's possible _The Greatest Showman could have more traditional musical numbers as well, or even that the song we hear is simply the "pop version" of the song that we'll hear on the radio, and a more traditional rendition will be in the movie.
At the end of the day, the purpose of a movie trailer is to get one interested in a movie, and I have to admit the trailer for The Greatest Showman has me curious. I certainly want to see more, to see how this particular idea shapes up. The new film starring Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron, and Michelle Williams is set for release this Christmas.
