Disney is teasing eager moviegoers with some musical scenes from the big-screen adaptation of Into the Woods sang by Meryl Streep and Anna Kendrick.
The movie is slated for release on December 25 but fans can already get a preview of both actresses' singing chops with Streep's "Stay With Me" and Kendrick's "On the Steps of the Palace."
Both actresses initially had reservations playing their roles in Into the Woods. Streep has been offered many witch roles when she turned 40, and she always treated those offers with disdain. However, she considered Stephen Sondheim's masterpiece as a challenge and embraced the witch role with gusto.
Meanwhile, Kendrick admitted to being very un-Cinderella and called herself a "weird little kid." She told Time, "It was a funny transition in my brain to be told I would be auditioning for Cinderella because I think of myself as, like, a screeching 12-year-old more than I think of myself as a kind-hearted ingenue."
Streep and Kendrick are no strangers to musicals. Streep played the role of single mother Donna Sheridan in the movie adaptation of Mamma Mia! while Kendrick gained fame in the movie Pitch Perfect, where she performed the much-raved "When I'm Gone" using cups as musical instruments.
Into the Woods, which is a modern take on the Brothers Grimm fairy tales, has been popularized as a broadway musical and people have come to expect certain scenarios such as the death of Rapunzel and the inappropriate relationship between Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf.
However, Disney has decided to take a family-friendly route by not killing off Rapunzel and omitting the infidelity scenes.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Director Rob Marshall told fans not to be too disappointed with the changes they made.
"Rapunzel's end is still pretty dark, it's just a different kind of dark, and it's just as harrowing, and just as sad," he said.