2022 has already been a fantastic year for movies in terms of quality and quantity. There have already been several very strong Best Picture contenders, and theater attendance has finally started to recover in a big way. This is undoubtedly the strongest year since the beginning of the COVID pandemic and might leave us feeling a little spoiled. Nevertheless, there is still much to come, including one highly anticipated movie about old Hollywood.
Babylon is the latest movie from up-and-coming director Damien Chazelle. After his breakthrough film Whiplash, a psychological drama about an aspiring drummer, Chazelle went on to make the romantic musical La La Land and the Neil Armstrong biopic First Man. These three films alone won a whopping ten Academy Awards. Needless to say, Chazelle's latest movie will be one to watch, and here is everything we know about it so far.
Babylon: The Plot
Babylon takes place in the Hollywood of the 1920s. It was only a few scant decades after the invention of film, and Los Angeles was not the global metropolis it is today. Things were in a state of rapid change: the city was expanding, and the transition to the sound film was completely changing the industry.
In the first Babylon trailer, we see a town full of actors and actresses who dream big, want to change the world, and, perhaps most of all, want to party. This is the Jazz Age, the Roaring Twenties, and this is a Hollywood of hedonism. Our characters are shown dancing, partying, doing drugs, fighting rattlesnakes, and who knows what else. At its core, the story seems to be about the debauchery of Hollywood and the consequences thereof. The trailer shows some characters getting in over their head, possibly with gangs, drugs, or other shady figures, and their world of dreams starting to collapse. At this early stage, though, we really don't know much about the overall plot.
What we can say is that the movie seems to draw from the true stories of the period. Hollywood in the 1920s and 1930s was seen by the rest of the country as a den of sin. The supposed hedonism of the city eventually caught up with it, culminating in one of the most famous trials in Hollywood history: the Fatty Arbuckle trial. Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle (you can probably guess how he got his nickname) was a pioneering film comedian of the silent era. In 1921, actress Virginia Rappe fell ill while at one of Arbuckle's parties and died four days later. Arbuckle was accused of attacking and accidentally killing her, and after three trials (the first two of which declared hung juries), he was acquitted of the crimes.
The accusations and trial sparked a national outrage that contributed greatly to the establishment of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America. This organization would be responsible for censoring Hollywood films for roughly four decades. The rest of the country, especially the Christians, were repulsed by the alleged behavior in Hollywood and didn't want such lechers making movies that their precious children might happen to watch. It seems that Babylon will draw heavily on this kind of view of 1920s Hollywood.
Babylon: The Cast
Just a month ago, it appeared like the cast of Babylon would be playing a delightful selection of real movie stars: the original “It Girl” Clara Bow, the first Chinese American movie star Anna May Wong, the beloved silver-screen comedian Charlie Chaplin, and more. However, we now know that the film's cast will be almost entirely fictional. The news may have come as a disappointment for fans of the silent era, but rest assured that the characters are all still deeply inspired by real movie stars.
According to a lengthy article by Vanity Fair, the cast is as follows. Brad Pitt (Bullet Train, Fight Club) stars as Jack Conrad, a brash leading man who loves to party. His role is reportedly inspired by the masculine leading men of the era, such as Clark Gable, Douglas Fairbanks, and John Gilbert. Margot Robbie (Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey, Suicide Squad) stars as Nellie LaRoy, an aspiring actress and sexpot who is new to Los Angeles and dives headfirst into its mayhem. She is inspired by the sensational Clara Bow, Jeanne Eagels, Joan Crawford, and Alma Rubens. Diego Calva (Unstoppable) plays Manny Torres, a Mexican immigrant who has just moved to Hollywood and is experiencing it all for the first time.
Supporting characters include Li Jun Li (Quantico) as Lady Fay Zhu, a character who seems heavily inspired by the impeccable Anna May Wong, the first Chinese American movie star and a fashion icon of the 1920s and 30s. Jean Smart (Hacks) plays Elinor St. John, most likely based on novelist and screenwriter Elinor Glyn, who wrote many classic films of the period. Tobey Maguire (Spider-Man) plays a character named James McKay; previously, he was believed to be playing Charlie Chaplin, but it is unclear if his character will have any similarities. Max Minghella plays successful film producer Irving Thalberg, the only character in the film who was actually a real person.
Some of the other names on the enormous cast include Jovan Adepo as Sidney Palmer, Lukas Haas as George Munn, Olivia Hamilton as Ruth Adler, Rory Scovel as The Count, Katherine Waterston as Ruth Arzner, Flea as Bob Levine, Telvin Griffin as Reginald, and Jeff Garlin as Don Wallach. Several actors also appear in as-of-yet undisclosed roles: Olivia Wilde, Spike Jonze, Samara Weaving, P. J. Byrne, Eric Roberts, Ethan Suplee, Damon Gupton, Phoebe Tonkin, Chloe Fineman, and Troy Metcalf.
Release Date
Babylon will be distributed by Paramount Pictures. It is scheduled for a limited theatrical release on Christmas Day 2022, just in time to make it eligible for the Academy Awards. It will then receive a wide release on January 6, 2023.
In addition to distributing the film, Paramount Pictures will likely be depicted in it. In the 1920s, the company was known as Famous Players-Lasky and was led by the Hungarian American producer Adolph Zukor. Clara Bow, the main inspiration for Margot Robbie's character, and Elinor Glyn, the inspiration for Jean Smart's, were both contracted at Famous Players-Lasky.