The marketing for Cloud Atlas was always going to be a challenge, which is probably why it’s taken Warner Bros. so long to release anything. The film, based on David Mitchell’s novel, follows multiple characters throughout six stories each set in different time periods. Director Tom Tykwer (who co-directed with The Wachowskis) described it as a “big-scale adult movie”, and the first footage confirms it’ll be just that.
The first look trailer is nearly 5 and a half minutes long, which has obviously been done to introduce audiences to the film and its themes. It’s a hard film to explain, but what it lacks in marketability it makes up in ambition and sheer epicness.
Watch below:
Cloud Atlas stars Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving, Keith David, Jim Broadbent, Jim Sturgess, Ben Whishaw, Hugh Grant and Susan Sarandon. It follows six stories ranging from the South Pacific in the 19th Century to California in the 1970s to a post-apocalyptic future, and most of the cast will be playing multiple characters throughout the six stories, swapping race and gender in the process.
Cloud Atlas had a running time of 2 hours 44 minutes at recent test screenings, and arrives in the US on October 26th, 2012. Other territories will see it later this year or early 2013.
