“Babylon,” director claims he made two-hour version on his iPhone

• Damien Chazelle’s epic historical drama ‘Babylon’ is being released by Paramount Pictures.
• The film has a final runtime of 189 minutes, or more than three hours.
• Babylon ended up being one of the biggest box office flops of 2022.

Damien Chazelle’s epic historical drama ‘Babylon’, which is being released by Paramount Pictures and has a final runtime of 189 minutes, or more than three hours, is no little accomplishment.

Recently, it was discovered that Chazelle really had a far shorter version of the movie, which he recorded using an iPhone.

Prior to the commencement of filming in July 2021, Chazelle revealed to the audience at a pre-release press conference that he had fully shot and practiced a two-hour version of Babylon.

Chazelle explained to the crowd, “It’s a very condensed, two-hour version of the entire movie, [filmed] on an iPhone in our garden. In contrast to the large ensemble cast that is seen on screen, this version of the movie only featured two actors: Damien Chazelle’s wife Olivia Hamilton, who plays director Ruth Adler and served as the movie’s producer, and Diego Calva, the breakout star who plays aspiring film assistant Manny Torres. Only Olivia, Damien, and I practised the entire movie in his backyard, according to Calva. It was an extremely unusual kind of circumstance.

While Chazelle’s two-hour cut may be a condensed version of the movie, Babylon’s theatrical release is anything but condensed and tells a complex account of the behind-the-scenes events during Tinseltown’s switch from silent to talkies.

Along with Hamilton and Calva, Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt also appear in the movie; Robbie plays young, ambitious Hollywood actress Nellie LaRoy and Pitt plays grizzled veteran actor Jack Conrad. Jean Smart, Jovan Adepo, Tobey Maguire, Katherine Waterston, Li Jun Li, P.J. Byrne, Olivia Wilde, Samara Weaving, Chloe Fineman, and others make up the ensemble cast for Babylon. Given the large ensemble and the movie’s expected $80 million budget, Paramount appeared to be on the right track.

This, however, was categorically false because Babylon ended up being one of the biggest box office flops of 2022.

At the domestic box office, the movie has only made $5.8 million, and it appears like it will be one of Paramount’s largest losses in recent memory.

While potential death sentences for Babylon included competition during the holiday season from movies like Avatar: The Way of Water and a declining interest in prestige projects, some business analysts theorised that the film’s longer than three-hour runtime may have contributed to the lack of ticket sales.

Babylon experienced box office difficulties despite receiving only average reviews from reviewers. “Babylon is often utter mayhem,” wrote Ross Bonaime in his review. “But below, there’s the beauty of life and the film itself, which makes this one of the best movies about movies this year, and one of the best films of 2022.”

Other responses, however, were more mixed, with critic Scott Menzel referring to Babylon as “a film that is an ambitious jumble. The tone of this is so off-kilter that I don’t even know where to start. A letter of love to cinema that turned me off of it.”

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