Hugh Jackman Is P.T. Barnum In Dazzling The Greatest Showman Trailer

Hugh Jackman is the inventor of show business in the first trailer for his upcoming musical The Greatest Showman. In the film, Jackman will play P.T. Barnum, best known for founding the Barnum and Bailey Circus, which redefined entertainment as the world knew it.

The trailer begins with Barnum working a typical office job, which he apparently has resigned himself to in order to support his family. However, he is soon informed that the company is bankrupt and that everyone there is out of work. "Better luck with your next job," he is told.

Barnum doesn't want to leave his family destitute, so he begins thinking of a new way to support them. Lightning strikes when he spins a can on a bulb, seeing the glimmering bits of light it projects throughout their tent. "I think I've had an idea," he says. This results in the entrepreneur seeking out strange and different people for a show. "Every one of us is special and nobody is like anyone else," he says. "That's the point of my show. No one ever made a difference by being like everybody else." 

The Greatest Showman has been many years in the making, going through seven years of starts and stops on its way to the big screen. Jackman previously credited the success of La La Land as a big part of why the musical was able to finally get off the ground, and, luckily, the upcoming flick has a big part of the film's success behind it: Oscar winning song-writing duo Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who penned the music. 

Jackman notes that the music will be fun and catchy, saying in a previous interview, "We were clear from the beginning that this wouldn't feel like a period movie or a historical piece. What would Barnum do now? I have an almost-12-year-old daughter. I wanted [the movie] to be as exciting for her as listening to Katy Perry's new song."

The rest of the film's cast includes Michelle Williams as Barnum's wife, Zac Efron as his business partner, and Zendaya as a trapeze artist and Efron's love interest. Rebecca Ferguson, Paul Sparks, Keala Settle, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Natasha Liu Bordizzo, Diahann Carroll, and Fredric Lehne also star in the film, which was directed by Michael Gracey (The Magician) based on a script from Jenny Bicks (What a Girl Wants) and Bill Condon (Dreamgirls). The movie is set for a Dec. 25 release; while we wait, see some of the other films being released this year that you won't want to miss.