UPDATE: Correction. Brady Corbet tells The New York Times’ Kyle Buchanan that this next film of his will be four hours in length. Still waiting on those casting details.
EARLIER: Last December, Brady Corbet confirmed that he was writing his next film, a ‘70s-set western that will have a “looser style,” but will once again tackle the immigration process, this time from China to California.
Corbet mentioned that he was inspired to write it after watching “Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” Most notably, he’s shooting this one on very rare eight-perf 65mm cameras.
Then, in July, Corbet mentioned that he plans to shoot this still-untitled film in early 2026 (“first quarter of the year”) and hinted at a long production that would go on until the summer. He described it as a “large format film.”
Now, in an interview with Sleek, Corbet is hinting that this next film will probably be around the same length as “The Brutalist,” which itself clocked in at 3 hours 35 minutes, including intermission:
To make a film yours, you have to be absolutely uncompromising about certain pillars of the project. You’ll walk away if those pillars aren’t erected and maintained. For example the length of “The Brutalist” – and also for my next project – time is a crucial ingredient. These are melodramas, and if you compress them into two hours to satisfy a studio, the experience becomes implausible.
Corbet had previously revealed that this next project will be “experimental, elemental … about the body,” and he expected it to carry an NC-17 rating. To make things even more ambitious, the story apparently spans “150 years.”
In a late 2024 interview on Marc Maron’s WTF Podcast, Corbet shared a few brief details, including the subject matter, which mainly takes place in the ‘70s but also spans 150 years.
Is he making a vampire movie?
To say “The Brutalist” was a major step up for Corbet would be an understatement, and that’s despite my personal belief that its first half was sheer perfection and its second more flawed. Nothing in his first two features (“Vox Lux,” “Childhood of a Leader”) could have prepared us for the scope, size, and ambition of “The Brutalist.” It’ll be interesting to hear more details about this next one.