Based on CinemaCon footage, it's been confirmed that Tobey Maguire will be playing silent film icon Charlie Chaplin in Damien Chazelle's upcoming film, Babylon. Prior to now, it was not known who Maguire would be playing in the film. The role is particularly exciting not just for Maguire's versatility and talent as an actor, but also the momentum he's currently riding from reprising his role as Peter Parker/Spider-Man in last year's Spider-Man: No Way Home.
The footage screened at CinemaCon also unveiled who some other actors in the film will be playing, namely Brad Pitt as silent film actor John Gilbert and Margot Robbie as Clara Bow, an iconic actress who successfully transitioned into "talkies" and was known as 'The It Girl' of Hollywood. It's been known that Chazelle's next film will cover 1920's Hollywood, so these castings are not too much of a surprise. Babylon could also mark the start of a strong partnership between the director and Maguire, as the latter is also a producer on the film.
Pitt, Robbie, and Maguire will lead an ensemble cast that also includes Li Jun Li, Jovan Adepo, Katherine Waterston, Flea, Samara Weaving, Lukas Haas, Rory Scovel, P.J. Byrne, Spike Jonze, Chloe Fineman, Jeff Garlin, and Jean Smart. None of their roles are known, though the CinemaCon footage did additionally reveal that Max Minghella will portray Irving Thalberg, a film producer known in Hollywood as 'The Boy Wonder.' The film is expected to encompass a massive scale, with a current runtime of three hours and five minutes.
Babylon is Chazelle's first film since his criminally underrated Neil Armstrong biopic First Man in 2018, which starred Ryan Gosling. He truly broke out into mainstream Hollywood with his feature film debut Whiplash, which led J.K. Simmons to his first Academy Award as the cold-hearted music instructor Terence Fletcher. La La Land is what most audiences will recognize him for, and is the film for which he won the Academy Award for Best Director. That film earned fourteen Academy Award nominations, which ties the record for the most nominations of any film. It won six of those fourteen nominations.
Babylon will hit theaters on December 25.