Damien Chazelle Says He “Won’t Get a Budget of Babylon Size Any Time Soon”

Damien Chazelle has been quiet since his 2022 film Babylon "flopped" at the box office.

Starring Margot Robbie, Diego Calva, Brad Pitt and Jean Smart, the film tells a tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, set during an era of unbridled decadence and depravity in early Hollywood.

Chazelle made it on an $80 million budget off the back of a career with steady momentum since he dazzled audiences with his sophomore feature Whiplash.

His follow-up to Whiplash was the sensational La La Land, starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, which scored him the Best Achievement in Directing Oscar at the age of 32, making him the youngest in history to receive the accolade.

So when Babylon came along, it was expected that Chazelle's success would keep rolling.

However, the film made $63.5 million at the box office and got slapped with a rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes from critics and audiences.

Babylon did land three Oscar nominations for production design, costume and its original score, but since then, it's been crickets from the wunderkind director.

Now, in a new interview with Max's Talking Pictures podcast, Chazelle reveals what he's been up to. "I've been sort of busy writing," he said. "I'll get a real taste of how it's changed or not once I finish this script and try to actually get it made".

Chazelle also said, "I'm in a sort of trepidatious state of mind, but I have no illusions. I'm not gonna get a budget of Babylon size any time soon, or at least not on this next one".

The director spoke further to the struggle of battling the financial complexity of Hollywood, saying, "Certainly, in financial terms, Babylon didn't work at all. You try to not have that affect what you're doing creatively, but, on some level, it can't help but affect it. But maybe that's okay? I don't know. I really have mixed minds about it."

He finished by saying "Who knows? Maybe I won't be able to get this one made. I have no idea. We'll have to wait and see."

Babylon had its lovers as much as it had its haters, and many believe that in a few years, history will revise it as a masterpiece.

In the meantime, Damien Chazelle has written a new movie musical that will be directed by Argylle's Matthew Vaughn.