Damien Chazelle Admits The Failure Of ‘Babylon’ May Hamper Future Projects

Bruce Haring

1 March 2024 at 9:03 pm·1-min read

As they say in Hollywood quite often, “Who knew?”

Take the 2022 film Babylon. It had Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt starring, and Oscar-winning La La Land writer/director Damien Chazelle handling that end.

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Then it went out and did just $15 million domestically against an $80 million budget. Reviews were mixed. No awards were given.

Chazelle knows that having Babylon on his resume isn’t going to help funding for future projects, as he noted during TCM’s Talking Pictures podcast.

“Certainly, in financial terms, Babylon didn’t work at all,” Chazelle said. “You try to not have that effect what you’re doing creatively, but, at some level, it can’t help but affect it. But maybe that’s OK? I have a very mixed mind about it. Who knows. Maybe I won’t be able to get this one made. I have no idea. We’ll have to wait and see.”

He continued, “I’ve been head in the sand. I’ve been sort of busy writing. So I’ll get a real taste of how it’s changed or not [since Babylon] once I get to finish this script and try to actually get it made. I’m in a sort of trepidatious state of mind, but I have no illusions. I won’t get a budget of Babylon size any time soon, or at least not on this next one.”

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