Babylon is the new production from Oscar-winning director and screenwriter Damien Chazelle, who is preparing to return to Tinseltown during Hollywood's Golden Age, when the transition from silent to talkies took place. And if it will have anything special, it will be the cast, which is undoubtedly phenomenal.
The filming was originally scheduled to take place in California in mid-2020 after obtaining a state tax credit to carry out the production. Everything was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and filming was to begin on July 1, 2021, ending on October 21, 2021.
Industry critics are eagerly awaiting the new project from Challeze, who became the youngest director to receive an Oscar when he lifted the statuette for his work on La La Land. Although most of the characters are fictional, he assured Vanity Fair that he was inspired by real icons of that era. “I wanted to capture just how big and bold and brash and unapologetic that world was. There was no roadmap… everything was just new and wild", he said.
'Babylon' Cast
The feature film will be carried by a cast of world-renowned superstars. Brad Pitt will play the silent film star John Gilbert and Margot Robbie will be the Roaring Twenties icon Clara Bow. While Tobey Maguire will play the legendary Charlie Chaplin, as we have already seen in the small previews provided by Vanity Fair.
Max Minghella will play Irving Thalberg and Jean Smart will play Elinor St. John. Katherine Waterston will be Ruth Arzner and Diego Calva will be Manny Torres. Lukas Haas will appear as George Munn, Li Jun Li as Lady Fay Zhu and Jovan Adepo as Sidney Palmer.
Several other actors will have cameos and important scenes in the film but their respective roles have not yet been revealed. Some of them are Samara Weaving, Spike Jonze, Flea, Eric Roberts, Rory Scovel, Phoebe Tonkin, Troy Metcalf, P.J. Byrne, Damon Gupton, Jeff Garlin, Chloe Fineman, Telvin Griffin and Olivia Wilde.
'Babylon' Release date and plot
The Paramount Studios-produced film is scheduled to hit theaters on December 25, 2022, followed by a general release on January 6, 2023. If you still don't know what to do for Christmas, you already have a plan: Go enjoy Babylon at the movies.
In addition to the three main actors (Robbie, Maguire and Pitt), there are several recognized names in the production. One of them is Olivia Wilde, who directed Don't Worry Darling with Harry Styles and Florence Pugh in the starring cast.
In the technical departments are cinematographer Linus Sandgren, costume designer Mary Zophres, editor Tom Cross and musician Justin Hurwitz. All were collaborators on the director's film, La La Land. It was confirmed that the film will be 3 hours and 8 minutes long, making it one of the longest films of the year, second only to Avatar: The Way of Water.
Margot Robbie and Damien Chazelle told how wild the movie is going to get
During an interview with Empire he argued that it's a wild ride in a proportional way and said "I remember being on the set of The Wolf of Wall Street and thinking 'I'll never be in a movie as crazy as this again.' And then I did Babylon. There's a dizzying amount of debauchery. One of the most disturbing and chaotic scenes I've ever witnessed is in this movie, and it involves a fight with a snake. I won't tell you who wins or loses that fight, but trust me, it's insane".
While director Damien Chazelle assured that "Hollywood back then was a place where, from the most depraved animal behavior, these beautiful and seductive works of art emerged. Hollywood in the 1920s was really a cesspool of vice, arrogance and excess. We've tried to put all of that into the film".
