Quentin Tarantino has been teasing titbits of his upcoming film ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’.
The film – which hasn’t yet started production – stars Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio and Margot Robbie, and is set in late 1960s Hollywood at the peak of the Charles Manson murders.
It follows a TV actor and his stunt double who ’embark on an odyssey to make a name for themselves in the film industry’.
DiCaprio will play the role of Rick Dalton, a former TV star, with Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) as his longtime stunt double. Dalton lives next door to Sharon Tate (played by Margot Robbie) who was brutally murdered by Manson’s followers in 1969.
Tarantino took to the stage with DiCaprio at CinemaCon in Las Vegas yesterday (April 23) and said the chemistry between the actors is: “the most exciting star dynamic since Paul Newman and Robert Redford”.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the director also said the film is: “probably the closest to ‘Pulp Fiction’ that I have done”.
“It’s hard to speak about a film that we haven’t done yet, but I’m incredibly excited to work with Brad Pitt, and I think he’s going to transport us,” DiCaprio added.
“I’m a huge fan of ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ – movies about Hollywood. As an L.A. native, having read the script, it’s one of the most amazing screenplays. We are going to do our best job to make it fantastic.”
Sony chairman Tom Rothman has said that the film’s screenplay is the best he’s ever read.
The film is set to be released on August 9, 2019 – the 50th anniversary of the LaBianca murders, and one day ahead of the 50th anniversary of Sharon Tate’s murder.
DiCaprio last worked with Tarantino on ‘Django Unchained’ in 2012, while Pitt last worked with the director back in 2009, on ‘Inglourious Basterds‘.
Meanwhile, last year Tarantino admitted he knew of disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s alleged sexual misconduct long before the allegations were disclosed in articles published by The New York Times and the New Yorker, saying: “I knew enough to do more than I did.”