Damien Chazelle is undoubtedly one of the most talented directors in Hollywood right now. However, his last feature directional, Babylon (2022), turned out to be a box office bomb. Apart from being a substantial financial failure, the Margot Robbie starrer failed to impress critics and viewers. Now, the director knows it will be hard for him to get the funding for his next project after Babylon’s disastrous box office performance.
Chazelle recently appeared on TCM’s Talking Pictures podcast, where he opened up about Babylon.
“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.”
Damien Chazelle’s Babylon turned out to be vastly different from his previous feature directional ventures. Making his filmmaking debut through Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench (2009), Chazelle first caught people’s eyes with Whiplash (2014), starring Miles Teller and J. K. Simmons. A couple of years later, the director’s prominence skyrocketed, thanks to La La Land, which gave him the Oscar for Best Director. The Neil Armstrong biopic, First Man (2018), was a moderate financial success despite receiving a strong positive critical reception.
It all went downhill for Damien Chazelle after Babylon. The film needed to mint at least $250 million globally to break even. However, it ended its box office run with only $63.4 million. The film’s high break-even point resulted primarily because of its promotional budget, which stood at $160 million. It starred the likes of Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt, Diego Calva, Jean Smart, Jovan Adepo, P. J. Byrne, Lukas Haas, Tobey Maguire, and more. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a ‘rotten’ score of 57%, based on 361 reviews.
In his talk with TCM’s Talking Pictures podcast, Damien Chazelle also revealed that he might not get a substantial budget for his next directional feature. “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.” Stay tuned for more updates.
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