'The 355' Teaser Explains The Meaning Behind That Mysterious Title

When you've got Jessica Chastain, Lupita Nyong'o, Penélope Cruz, Diane Kruger, and Bingbing Fan leading a movie about lady spies, do you even need a title? Well, yes, and in the case of the vaguely titled The 355, it turns out you need an explanation for that title, too. Just a day after Universal released the buzzy first trailer for the action blockbuster which teams up a group of female international spies, the studio has dropped a new The 355 teaser which gives us a little history behind the film's title.

"Remember that story that they told us about in training?" Chastain's wild card CIA agent Mason "Mace" Brown says to her colleague. "About Washington's first female spy during the Revolution? Agent 355, they called her. Because nobody knew her real name. Well, somebody did. They just didn't want the world to know it."

And there it is, the explanation behind the title for The 355. It seems to suggest that Chastain, Kruger, Nyong'o, Cruz, and Fan's spies are part of a tradition of anonymous female spies who operate on the outskirts of history, getting little credit for changing the world. It's a neat idea, but I wish that the movie had a snappier name that didn't have to be explained in a scene where Chastain talks to someone for a minute. But the teaser trailer also contains some new footage not shown in the first official trailer, including an animated sequence set to Chastain's narration, Fan's spy in action fighting off henchmen with a long metal pole, and lots of explosions.

Sebastian Stan (Avengers: Endgame) and Edgar Ramirez (Zero Dark Thirty) also star in The 355, which is directed by Simon Kinberg (Dark Phoenix) with a script he also wrote with Theresa Rebeck (NBC's Smash). Jessica Chastain is also producing with Kelly Carmichael through their Freckle Films banner, and Kinberg is producing through his Genre Films company with Richard Hewitt (Bohemian Rhapsody) serving as executive producer.

When a top-secret weapon falls into mercenary hands, wild card CIA agent Mason "Mace" Brown  Jessica Chastain) will need to join forces with rival badass German agent Marie (Diane Kruger), former MI6 ally and cutting-edge computer specialist Khadijah (Lupita Nyong'o), and skilled Colombian psychologist Graciela (Penélope Cruz) on a lethal, breakneck mission to retrieve it, while also staying one-step ahead of a mysterious woman, Lin Mi Sheng (Bingbing Fan), who is tracking their every move.

As the action rockets around the globe from the cafes of Paris to the markets of Morocco to the wealth and glamour of Shanghai, the quartet of women will forge a tenuous loyalty that could protect the world—or get them killed.

The 355 is set to open in theaters next year on January 15, 2021.