Denzel Washington is a music mogul on the move in the first teaser trailer for Spike Lee‘s Highest 2 Lowest.
The montage-heavy preview features quick scenes from the film interspersed with images of the Brooklyn Bridge.
He and co-star A$AP Rocky are shown on the move, with what looks like police and Washington in hot pursuit.
Over the visuals, Washington’s character in voiceover says, “There’s more to life than just making money. It’s integrity. There’s what you stand for. It’s what you actually believe in. Do you believe in yourself? Do you believe you’ll be successful? The hard times will come from the good times. The hard times will come from success. The hard times will come from the money. And the mayhem follows. So can you handle the mayhem? Can you handle the money? Can you handle the success? Can you handle the failure? Can you handle the lovers? Can you handle the memes? Can you handle everything that there is in between? That’s the question I have for you: Can you handle it? All money ain’t good money.”
Lee dropped the preview on his Instagram account on Monday, writing in part, “I know u have been waiting ‘hella long’.”
The team-up marks Washington and Lee’s first film together in nearly 20 years and fifth collaboration overall.
Highest 2 Lowest, a New York City-set reinterpretation of Akira Kurosawa’s crime thriller High and Low, stars Washington as a powerful music industry exec, known for having the “best ears in the business,” who’s targeted in a ransom plot that puts him in a life-or-death moral dilemma.
Highest 2 Lowest — the cast of which also includes Jeffrey Wright, Ice Spice and Ilfenesh Hadera — will have its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on Monday, May 19.
The film will get a theatrical release from A24 on Aug. 22 before arriving on Apple TV+ on Sept. 5.
