Paramount has released the first batch of photos from Babylon, writer/director Damien Chazelle’s star-studded epic tale of Hollywood in the 1920s. Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie lead the cast, reuniting after starring in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, a fairy tale take on the Manson family murder of Sharon Tate.
Babylon‘s cast also includes Tobey Maguire, Jean Smart, Lukas Haas, Li Jun Li, Jovan Adepo, and Diego Calva. P.J. Byrne, Olivia Hamilton, Max Minghella, Rory Scovel, Katherine Waterston, Flea, Jeff Garlin, Eric Roberts, Ethan Suplee, Samara Weaving, and Olivia Wilde also star in what’s sure to be a 2023 Oscar contender.
Filmmaker Chazelle spoke to Vanity Fair about directing Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie. “Part of what was magical about working with them in these roles is that each of them felt like they were really able to make the performance the most personal thing they had done,” stated Chazelle.
Chazelle, a Best Director Oscar winner for La La Land, also described the origin of Babylon. “The basic idea was just to do a big, epic, multicharacter movie, set in these early days of Los Angeles and Hollywood, when both of these things were coming into what we now think of them as,” said Chazelle in the Vanity Fair interview.
Marc Platt, Matthew Plouffe, and Olivia Hamilton produced, with Michael Beugg, Tobey Maguire, Wyck Godfrey, Helen Estabrook, and Adam Siegel executive produced.
Babylon will open for an awards consideration run on December 25, 2022 followed by a wide release on January 6, 2023.
The Plot: A tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, it traces the rise and fall of multiple characters during an era of unbridled decadence and depravity in early Hollywood.
