For quite some time now the world has known that multi-hyphenate Bradley Cooper has been working on his next film as a triple threat. Tackling the passion project that is the Leonard Bernstein biopic titled Maestro, Cooper changed his look to play the part himself, revealing those results early on. Now with the first trailer for the movie in play, it can be confirmed that A Star Is Born was only the beginning. And Bradley is coming for all the Oscars he can grab.
Netflix released a quick teaser to the film, showing Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan in the roles of Leonard and his wife Felicia Montealegre. All at once romantic and heartbreaking, Maestro will look deeper into the lives of these two lovers, as well as the music of the accomplished composer behind scores like West Side Story.
As an earlier tease for Maestro’s spot on the 2023 movie release schedule, the studio had released photos of Cooper’s wild makeup transformation to play Bernstein throughout different phases of his life. Those results were quite impressive in stills alone, but now seeing and hearing the transformation is even more of a treat.
Especially when, as you’ll see in the photo below, the older Leonard Bernstein is where the transformation really kicks into full gear:
It’s been a little over four years since Bradley Cooper’s last directing effort, the Lady Gaga co-starring drama A Star Is Born, took its place as part of the 2019 Academy Award nominees. Though the film did win an Oscar for Best Original Song with “Shallow,” it failed to win any of the other seven fields it was nominated for. Also, Cooper didn’t secure a Best Director nod for that previous picture, despite it being well received.
That sort of history can fuel a person in the right way, and looking at this footage, you can tell that Bradley Cooper is not only inspired, he’s still hungry for that trophy. Should Maestro go the distance, it’d be a vindication for the man himself, while also acting as a fitting cap to an impressive 2023.
While he’s only had one other lead performance hit theaters this year, that role just happened to be that of Rocket Raccoon. Closing out his MCU trilogy, James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was one of the rare Disney successes from this year’s slate of titles. With such a fantastic success in the world of tentpole movies under his belt, Cooper’s potential awards season windfall with Maestro would be a fitting bookend to the year.
It’s tempting to run away with predictions of golden glory at this point, though at the same time Maestro’s intentions are perfectly clear. Chronicling the life of a great musical talent, warts and all, Bradley Cooper and Netflix are definitely gunning for some awards consideration with this one. So while it’s too early to tell whether that’ll work or not, one can still say that this is one of the earliest titles to be discussed in those terms. This movie just looks too ambitious, and too beautiful, not to speculate in those circles.
Maestro has quite the golden run planned out for its near future. The film is an official selection to debut at the Venice Film Festival, and will head into theatrical release in November. For those of you looking to stream the film, Maestro will be on Netflix’s digital library starting December 20th; which is only one of the anticipated offerings on Netflix movie schedule set to debut throughout the rest of the year.
