Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon” tanked at the box-office, making $63 million against a production budget of a little under $100 million. The film ultimately lost Paramount an estimated $87 million. Oddly enough, it was a huge hit in France, with both critics and audiences.
I recently saw a tongue-in-cheek tweet pleading with Hollywood to get Chazelle out of the “director’s jail.” I don’t believe “Babylon” has added the filmmaker to any sort of blacklist, but it definitely put a slight dent on the career of the talented filmmaker behind “Whiplash” and “La La Land.”
Chazelle was a guest on Ben Mankiewicz’s Talking Pictures podcast. He was asked about the “Babylon” failure and his future in Hollywood. It turns out that Chazelle is almost done writing a script that he’s about to shop around, and he’s uncertain how Hollywood will welcome him back into fold:
I’ve been sort of busy writing. So I’ll get a taste of how it’s changed or not [since “Babylon”] once I get to finish this script and try to 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.
Certainly, in financial terms, “Babylon” didn’t work at all. 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 okay? I have very mixed mind about it. Maybe I won’t be able to get this one made. We’ll have to wait and see.
I hope Chazelle gets to make whatever he wants. He’s a unique talent.
The more risk-taking a film is, the more divided the reaction will be. In 2022, film critics were dunking on Chazelle’s “Babylon”, as they could not stand the excess, but a 57 percent rotten score was undeserved.
And yet, almost no film in 2022 aimed higher than “Babylon.” That, in itself, should have earned this rousingly frenetic epic more respect. Some, including Stephen King, believe the film is bound to be reappraised in the near future.
Chazelle’s film might have been flawed, but it has these brillantly surreal moments that have stayed etched in my memory. It’s very hard to completely fault a filmmaker for taking a big swing, and, on a moment by moment basis, “Babylon” gave me more cinematic thrills than almost any other movie released that year.
Alright, let’s settle this once and for all. What’s the best Bond movie? While we wait for the next actor to be cast, let’s do what Bond fans have been doing for six decades: argue about which one is actually the best.