Nobody—except maybe fans of weirdly literal interpretations of prophecies—would accuse Macbeth of being a particularly cheery play. It’s about people choosing to do evil things in order to get power, and the psychological toll that it takes on them when the repercussions of that evil start to creep in. A bunch of people die, someone commits suicide, and there’s a pretty great soliloquy. It’s a lot of fun, but it is not cheery.
That being said, these preview clips from director Justin Kurzel’s upcoming Macbeth adaptation—which stars Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard—are especially not cheery. The first shows a few seconds of Macbeth’s coronation as the King Of Scotland, an occasion that’s met with a lot of “Hail Macbeth!” cheers, but nobody seems especially excited about their new king. Come on, guys. It’s Michael Fassbender! He’s got that big penis everybody talks about!
The second clip is just as grim, but at least everyone has an excuse to be so serious. It’s a standard battle scene, right down to the yelling and slow-motion, but it’s the sort of artsy battle scene you’d expect from a modern Shakespeare adaptation. All it’s missing are some computer-generated robots, but they didn’t have those back when Shakespeare was writing this stuff.