Well, you don’t see this too often. Eschewing the usual Apple/Yahoo!/MSN launching pads, Sony premiered the trailer for David O. Russell’s “American Hustle” on ABC’s Good Morning America earlier today, with Russell on hand to talk about the movie.

The movie looks like a delicious little romp, actually, and as I had suspected given early images, it’s marinating in the period flavor of the piece. We might see some attention paid in the design races later this year, particularly the costumes.

As for performances, Bale — who will have an incredibly solid year between this and Scott Cooper’s “Out of the Furnace” — looks fully immersed in the part. I’ve heard Jeremy Renner is pretty great. But it’s a big ensemble with lots of moving parts — a “wild world of amazing characters,” as Russell put it — so we’ll have to see how it all shakes out later this year.

“Everyone is playing someone they haven’t played before,” Russell said on the program. “Christian Bale is playing this kind of a New Yorker, a guy from the Bronx, a big softie who’s got killer instincts as a business man. Amy is playing a vixen who is really cunning and crafty and is smarter than her partner in many respects.”

The director also began the zeitgeist push with the film by drawing a line to the current economy and his story of people doing what they can to survive.

“America’s always about reinvention,” he said. “The theme is about how much we have to con other people to sign in our own jobs, to talk ourselves into jobs or relationships that we don’t necessarily believe in.”

Check out the trailer and the interview below. “American Hustle” arrives in theaters on Dec. 13.