Academy Award winning director Guillermo del Toro's latest film, Nightmare Alley, has had its final trailer released this week and from cast to production, everything about it looks phenomenal.

The film stars Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Willem Dafoe, Toni Collette, Tim Blake Nelson, David Strathairn, Mary Steenburgen, and del Toro regular Ron Parlman. In this dark film noir, Bradley Cooper plays a manipulative carny with a knack for conniving people through his words. After teaming up with an equally devious female psychiatrist, played by Blanchett, his world is turned upside down.

Based on the novel by William Lindsey Gresham, Guillermo del Toro spoke to Collider about his version of the story, which he based more on the 1946 novel and not the original film adaptation which came out in 1947.

Well what it is is that book was given to me in 1992 by Ron Perlman before I saw the Tyrone Power movie, and I loved the book. My adaptation that I've done with [co-writer] Kim Morgan is not necessarily-the entire book is impossible, it's a saga. But there are elements that are darker in the book, and it's the first chance I have-in my short films I wanted to do noir. It was horror and noir. And now is the first chance I have to do a real underbelly of society type of movie. [There are] no supernatural elements. Just a straight, really dark story.

Always a master of storytelling, visuals, and a knack for making the unimaginable feel tangible, such a broodingly dark narrative is certain to thrive with del Toro at the helm. The proof is definitely evident in the new trailer. If he can make a love affair between a woman and a fish person, we can only imagine what he will do this time around.

Nightmare Alley is due to hit theaters on December 17, 2021.

Tags: guillermo del toro Nightmare Alley Bradley Cooper Cate Blanchett Trailer