Despite the misstep that was his ersatz musical La La Land, Damien Chazelle showed quite a bit of promise with Whiplash and First Man, qualities that hopefully carry into Babylon. Led by Diego Calva, Margot Robbie, and Brad Pitt, the Jazz Age-set epic is rumored to veer into heavily R-rated territory as it captures Hollywood’s transition from silents to talkies. Ahead of a late December release, the first batch of images have now arrived.
“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,” the official synopsis reads for the film also starring Jean Smart, Jovan Adepo, Li Jun Li, P.J. Byrne, Lukas Haas, Olivia Hamilton, Tobey Maguire, Max Minghella, Rory Scovel, Katherine Waterston, Flea, Jeff Garlin, Eric Roberts, Ethan Suplee, Samara Weaving, and Olivia Wilde.
“It was really a wild West period for these people, this gallery of characters, as they rise and fall, rise, fall, rise again, fall again,” Chazelle tells Vanity Fair, adding “the thing that they’re building is springing back on them and chewing them up.” He notes, “I wanted to capture just how big and bold and brash and unapologetic that world was.”
See the first images below.
Babylon opens in limited release on Christmas Day and expands wide on January 6, 2023.