Once Upon A Time In Hollywood Teaser Trailer Takes You To 1969 Los Angeles
He's got slicked-back blonde hair, a cheeky attitude, the emotional range of those wide valleys Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell sang about, and a touch of conceit. Who is he? He's Rick freakin' Dalton, and he's the central character of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the ninth and possibly penultimate film by famed director Quentin Tarantino.
Following much anticipation, Sony Pictures Entertainment finally drew the curtain on the first footage for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood on Wednesday morning (shortly after Netflix dropped the trailer for Stranger Things season 3).
The teaser trailer, clocking in at just a minute and 45 seconds in length, opens on a black-and-white interview with fictional TV star Rick Dalton (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) and his longtime stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt). A suggestive joke is exchanged between the duo and their interviewer — a solid entry point into the tone of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood — before the teaser shifts into another gear.
Vision of real-life actress Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) dancing around in her bedroom float across the screen, while shots of 1969 Los Angeles swipe past our eyes. Young girls, embracing the hippie movement in sunny California, skip through the streets in crotchet tops and flare-bottom jeans. Cliff and Rick shoot sequences for an action movie starring the legendary Bruce Lee (Mike Moh), who warns Cliff that his "hands are registered as lethal weapons" and that if they get into a fight and he accidentally kills him, he'll go to jail. Cliff quips back, "Anybody accidentally kills anybody in a fight, they go to jail. It's called manslaughter." Ah, there's that Tarantino wit we've been missing.
The Once Upon a Time in Hollywood teaser takes one more leap when the lyrics to Los Bravos' "Bring a Little Lovin'" burst forth from the background. Stitched together are tiny snippets of well-dressed men and women getting their groove on at a Hollywood party, Sharon going for a dip in a swimming pool, someone riding on horseback, Rick shimmying on a studio set in front of two women in matching outfits, Cliff taking a late-night drive through L.A., and the infamous serial killer Charles Manson (Damon Herriman) flashing an eerie smile and a three-finger wave at someone off screen. The film's stylized title, Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood, flashes just head of the teaser's end-cap scene: a young actress tells Rick that his acting is the best she's ever seen, and he looks equal parts emotional and self-satisfied at the compliment.
Take a look at the teaser trailer in the video above.
With only a few months to go until Once Upon a Time in Hollywood arrives in theaters this summer, Sony will only ramp up marketing for the film from here on out. The first poster and this new teaser are out, but what everyone will be waiting for now is a full-length trailer — and one that gives a little more insight into what Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is all about. Even if one knew nothing about the film prior to seeing this trailer, catching Sharon Tate and Charles Manson in the footage signals that Once Upon a Time in Hollywood will involve the Manson Family murdersof August 9, 1969, when members of Manson's cult killed Sharon and several of her friends inside her home. Tarantino himself has said that Once Upon a Time in Hollywood doesn't heavily focus on Manson and instead explores the year 1969 as a whole; Manson, his actions, and those of his cult members are linked to the plot only tangentially.
It's clear that the heart of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is the hilarious pair Rick and Cliff, who will face a string of obstacles trying to make a name for themselves in a Hollywood they no longer recognize. That Sharon is Rick's next-door neighbor signals she could be the answer to his woes — and might get him mixed up in some Manson-related trouble. We're confident we're not alone in wondering how Tarantino will blend fact with fiction for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and we can't wait to see how it all turns out.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood — which also stars essentially everyone in Hollywood, from Al Pacino and Bruce Dern to Dakota Fanning and Lena Dunhamto Tim Roth and James Marsden, Michael Madsen and Timothy Olyphant, and so many more — is set for release on July 26.