Angel Studios released the first full trailer Monday for “Hershey,” a biographical drama chronicling the rise of chocolate magnate Milton S. Hershey, setting up a Thanksgiving theatrical release timed to capture holiday family audiences.
Finn Wittrock plays Milton Hershey opposite Alexandra Daddario as his wife, Catherine “Kitty” Hershey, in a film that spans nearly five decades, from the early 1870s through the late 1910s. Director Mark Waters traces Hershey’s repeated business failures before he built the candy empire that bears his name, then pivots to the couple’s philanthropic legacy, including the Milton Hershey School. “Truth is, candy is not my business,” Wittrock says in the trailer. “Candy is my obsession.” Daddario’s Kitty later urges him to abandon perfectionism: “Milton, you keep chasing perfection, when maybe you should be chasing magic.”
The film opens November 25, one day before Thanksgiving. Production unfolded across 17 locations in Pennsylvania, including Pittsburgh, Hershey, Harmony, Smithfield and Ligonier, with crews working alongside the Hershey Entities, Dandelion Media, Aloe Entertainment, Peachtree Group and RCM3. Alan Ruck, Richard Kind, David Costabile and Heléne Yorke round out the supporting cast. The story is by Sharon Paul, Will Hardy, and Micheal Fulcher, while the screenplay was written by Sharon Paul and Timothy Michael Hayes; Waters previously directed “Mean Girls” and “Freaky Friday.”
Critics who previewed the footage noted the project fits squarely within Angel Studios’ track record of faith-adjacent, values-driven films, a slate that includes “Sound of Freedom.” Reviewers described the trailer as unapologetically earnest, framing Hershey as a benevolent industrialist who refused to cut workers’ wages even when his business teetered near collapse. One outlet pointed out that the studio bypassed irony entirely at a moment when corporate biopics have become common enough to draw parody elsewhere in Hollywood.
The Hershey Company itself has promoted the trailer through its own corporate channels, underscoring the unusual alignment between a publicly traded confectioner and an independent studio built around crowd-funded, faith-friendly storytelling. The real Milton Hershey, who died in 1945, left the bulk of his fortune to the school for orphaned and disadvantaged children he founded with Catherine in 1909, an institution that still operates today.
