Two young soldiers are tasked with saving the lives of some 1,600 men in the first trailer for Sam Mendes’s forthcoming First World War epic 1917.
The tense two-minute teaser sees Colin Firth’s commander charge Game Of Thrones star Dean-Charles Chapman and Captain Fantastic’s George MacKay with an important mission.
Playing Blake and Schofield respectively, the pair must cross enemy territory and deliver a message that will stop a deadly attack on a battalion – in which Blake’s brother is enlisted.
Time is the enemy. From Sam Mendes, the director of Skyfall, comes 1917. In theaters December. #1917Movie pic.twitter.com/zXIU6FKHdV
— 1917 (@1917) August 1, 2019
Firth warns the pair: “If you fail, it will be a massacre.”
In another scene, Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch issues a sombre declaration.
“There is only one way this war ends… Last man standing,” he says.
Skyfall and Spectre director Mendes has also reportedly recruited Andrew Scott and Richard Madden to the cast.
Mendes, who recently won both an Olivier and Tony award for directing Jez Butterworth’s play The Ferryman, penned the screenplay with Krysty Wilson-Cairns, the writer behind Penny Dreadful.
He produced 1917 with Pippa Harris via the pair’s Neal Street Productions studio for DreamWorks Pictures.
The film will be released on January 10.