Damien Chazelle’s ‘Babylon,’ With Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie, Shows Off Old Hollywood Glamour and Mayhem at CinemaCon

The “La La Land” director’s latest film opens in theaters on Christmas Day

Damien Chazelle Babylon
Photo by Dale Robinette

Damien Chazelle’s latest film “Babylon” dazzled with its Old Hollywood glamour and other more eccentric charms and mayhem at CinemaCon on Thursday, one of the showpieces of Paramount’s presentation.

Chazelle’s film, which is a “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” reunion of Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie, has a lot of style, some jazz but also some madcap humor, including a closing scene to the trailer in which Pitt’s producing tent is precariously located next to where an elaborate battlefield is staging a period war scene, only for a spear to come flying in inches next to his head. Don’t worry, he was unfazed and merely used the moment to berate his prop’s guy.

But this is a Chazelle film, so there was some sincerity about the love of movies as well.

“No actors, no dogs allowed. We changed that,” Pitt says in the trailer. “So what happens up there on the screen, means something.”

While Pitt and Robbie anchor the cast of the film set in the Golden Age of Hollywood, “Babylon” also features a star-studded cast that includes Katherine Waterston, Olivia Wilde, Tobey Maguire, Samara Weaving, Eric Roberts, Jean Smart, Lukas Haas, Phoebe Tonkin, Spike Jonze, Max Minghella, Jeff Garlin, Chloe Fineman and even Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea.

Plot details are still a little light even with the trailer, and the film doesn’t even have a specific logline of yet, but we’re excited by what we’ve seen.

“Babylon” opens in theaters from Paramount on Christmas Day.

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