Margot Robbie in 'Babylon' (2022) | Image: Paramount Pictures

WATCH: Watch Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt’s ‘Insane Time’ in the New ‘Babylon’ Featurette Trailer

Rob Edwards
By Rob Edwards - News

Published: Last Updated: 

Readtime: 3 min

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Babylon is about a group of people who find themselves in early Hollywood at a time of extreme depravity and debauchery and excess,” says writer/director Damien Chazelle. When you consider that the people Chazelle is referring to are portrayed by the likes of Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt, Olivia Wilde, Tobey Maguire and Samara Weaving, and that the new Welcome to Babylon trailer (above) looks like a helluva lot of fun, we’re happy to declare ourselves well and truly on board for when the movie lands in cinemas on January 19.

Margot Robbie in 'Babylon' (2022) | Image: Paramount Pictures
Margot Robbie in ‘Babylon’ (2022) | Image: Paramount Pictures

While Chazelle is known for ambitious projects like Whiplash, La La Land and First Man, he describes Babylon as the biggest thing he’s ever tried to do. It certainly looks like it has the potential to be the most large-scale production the director has yet helmed. After all, when your flick promising a glimpse behind the Hollywood curtain still requires the thousands of extras, elaborate costumes and megastar wattage that used to go into making genuine cinematic epics, well, you might as well make a genuine cinematic epic. Chazelle and his crew appear to have done precisely that, albeit while maintaining a tone that kept tongues firmly planted in cheeks.

Brad Pitt leads the cast as the biggest film actor in 1920s Hollywood, Jack Conrad. Arrogant and at the top of his game, he comes across as some kind of a strange mid-point between Pitt’s Oscar-winning performance in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and his hilariously dim-witted turn in Burn After Reading. Pitt is joined by Diego Calva, playing wide-eyed dreamer Manny, who acts as the audience’s surrogate into this world, while Margot Robbie fills the shoes of aspiring actress Nellie LaRoy, who she compares to a tornado who won’t let anyone stand in her way.

Babylon Trailer
Image: Paramount Pictures

The cast is rounded out by the aforementioned Olivia Wilde, Tobey Maguire and Samara Weaving, as well as Eric Roberts, Katherine Waterston, Jean Smart, and Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. However things shake out for the cast by the time Babylon wraps up, it looks like we’re in for a wild ride. If Los Angeles in the ’20s truly was “such an insane time… like the wild west” as Robbie suggests, we can’t wait to discover all of the madness Chazelle and co have concocted when the film arrives on January 19.

Check out the Welcome to Babylon featurette above or via the link below.

Check it out

Babylon Trailer
Image: Paramount Pictures
Tobey Maguire in 'Babylon' (2022) | Image: Paramount Pictures
Tobey Maguire in ‘Babylon’ (2022) | Image: Paramount Pictures

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Rob Edwards

Branded Content Editor

Rob Edwards

Rob Edwards is Man of Many’s Branded Content Editor. As a former editor of consumer technology and lifestyle publications like T3, Official Nintendo Magazine, Official Windows Magazine, and TechRadar, Rob has honed his expertise in consumer technology and lifestyle products ...