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Wall Street just met its match, and she’s wearing six-inch heels to Cardi B’s “Money.”
STXfilms dropped the first official trailer for Hustlers on July 17, 2019, and it wastes no time announcing what kind of movie this is. Written and directed by Lorene Scafaria, the crime comedy-drama arrives in theaters September 13, 2019, and the two-and-a-half-minute preview leans entirely into its high-wire premise: strippers versus the guys who crashed the economy.
- STXfilms released the trailer on July 17, 2019, ahead of a September 13, 2019 theatrical release.
- The script is based on Jessica Pressler’s viral 2015 New York magazine investigation, “The Hustlers at Scores.”
- The trailer, set to Cardi B’s “Money,” centers on Jennifer Lopez’s Ramona Vega mentoring Constance Wu’s Destiny in a scheme to drug Wall Street clients and run up their corporate cards after the 2008 financial collapse.
The Real Hustle Behind the Story
Pressler’s original magazine piece chronicled how a crew of strip-club dancers in New York City, watching their income evaporate after the 2008 crash, flipped the script on their finance-bro clientele. Instead of just working the room, they started drugging wealthy customers and maxing out their corporate credit cards, funneling the money back through the club system. Scafaria’s adaptation keeps that post-crash desperation front and center, using it as the engine for everything the trailer shows.
Ramona’s Masterclass
The trailer’s backbone is the relationship between Lopez’s veteran dancer, Ramona Vega, and Wu’s Destiny, a novice single mother pulled into the fold. Early scenes show Ramona physically coaching Destiny through pole work — specific, athletic moves meant to establish her as the best in the club before the film pivots to the real curriculum: how to run the hustle itself. Once Destiny’s trained up, Ramona rallies the rest of the crew into a coordinated, systematic operation targeting their Wall Street regulars.
“The game is rigged, and it does not reward people who play by the rules.”
That line, delivered by Lopez as Ramona, is the trailer’s thesis in eight seconds — economic payback dressed up as a heist movie.
A Cast Built for the Big Screen
Beyond Lopez and Wu, the ensemble is stacked with names pulled from music and film. Cardi B and Lizzo both appear as members of the crew, alongside Lili Reinhart and Keke Palmer. Julia Stiles plays the journalist investigating the scheme from the outside — a nod to Pressler’s real-life reporting that inspired the whole project. It’s the kind of cast that, much like Cardi B’s other 2019 crossover into blockbuster territory in the Fast and Furious franchise, signals STXfilms is betting on star power to pull in an audience beyond the usual drama crowd.
Scafaria, previously known for smaller independent work, is handling a considerably bigger budget and a much larger ensemble here than in her earlier films. The trailer suggests she’s kept the character-driven instincts intact while still delivering the slicker, glossier look STX is clearly selling — not unlike the tonal balancing act other 2019 genre pictures, from upcoming horror releases to splashier action fare, have tried to pull off with mixed casts of A-listers and newcomers.
With the trailer out and Cardi B’s “Money” already doing the marketing work, the next marker is September 13 — the date Hustlers actually opens and finds out whether audiences want to watch Ramona and Destiny run their number on Wall Street for two hours.
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