Once Upon A Time In Hollywood: First Poster For Quentin Tarantino Film Has Arrived
British pop artist Charlie XCX and Australian singer-songwriter Troye Sivan took listeners to 1999 with their collab hit single last year. Marvel Studios turned the clock back a bit further to 1995 with the Brie Larson-topped superhero solo flick Captain Marvel. But this summer, famed director Quentin Tarantino will outdo them all when he rewinds 40 years to 1969 with his hotly anticipated mystery crime film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood — the first poster for which was unveiled on Monday, March 18.
Academy Award-winner Leonardo DiCaprio, who leads Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as the struggling TV actor Rick Dalton, shared the one-sheet on his personal Twitter account, tacking to it a simple caption. "Hollywood. 1969. #OnceUponATimeInHollywood," DiCaprio wrote to accompany that poster that features his character standing in a brown leather jacket and staring wistfully at something off camera.
DiCaprio isn't the only mega-watt star seen on the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood poster (nor is he the only A-lister on the film's cast, but we'll get to that later). Joining DiCaprio front and center for the Tarantino-helmed pic and on the opposite site of him in the promotional photo is Brad Pitt, who plays Cliff Booth, the longtime stunt double and close friend of DiCaprio's Rick. Pitt's Cliff goes for a much bolder outfit, wearing a pineapple-yellow, floral-print shirt overtop a Champion shirt. Where Rick looks slick in slacks and a perfectly coifed hairdo, Cliff is laidback in a pair of blue jeans, a belt with a heavy buckle, and a shaggy head of blonde hair.
They may visually appear polar opposites based on this poster, but Rick and Cliff are fighting the same battle: they're attempting to reestablish themselves in a Hollywood they fear they no longer belong in, one that has traded in the glitz and glam of the '50s for the free love attitude and hippy movement that characterized the late '60s. However, luck might be on their side in the form of one of Hollywood's most beloved darlings: screen star Sharon Tate, the prolific actress and wife of director Roman Polanski, played in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood by Margot Robbie.
As Tarantino previously said of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, "Both [Rick and Cliff] are struggling to make it in a Hollywood they don't recognize anymore. But Rick has a very famous next-door neighbor — Sharon Tate. I've been working on this script for five years, as well as living in Los Angeles County most of my life, including in 1969, when I was seven years old. I'm very excited to tell this story of an L.A., and a Hollywood that don't exist anymore. And I couldn't be happier about the dynamic teaming of DiCaprio and Pitt as Rick and Cliff."
Everyone involved with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (and there are tons of names on the daily call sheet) is keeping their lips tightly zipped on how all the moving parts of the film come together. There's the dynamic of Rick and Cliff, who are clearly the central duo of the film, and there's Sharon Tate, who has a connection to the pair and might possibly assist them in some way. But there's also Charles Manson and his cult of followers who murdered Tate and several of her friends in her Benedict Canyon home on August 9, 1969. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood isn't all about the infamous cult leader and killer, as Tarantino clarified in a past interview, but he and his underlings will play an important part in the film — both because of what ends up happening to Tate and because Tarantino tapped a handful of stars to portray Manson and several Manson Family members. Damon Herriman plays Manson in the film, with Dakota Fanning portraying Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, Austin Butler playing Charles "Tex" Watson, and Lena Dunham portraying Catherine Share (who didn't have direct involvement with the murders).
How will the woes of an actor and his stunt double collide with the life of a famous film actress and then cross paths with one of America's most notorious killers and the crew he ordered to slay a group of innocent people? We have no idea — at least at this point in time. Since Tarantino is known for his distinct filmmaking style and storytelling methods and isn't one for predictability or subtlety, it's all but guaranteed that whatever he has cooking up for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood will end up being surprising and satisfying in equal measure.
Circling back to the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood poster, which doesn't reveal anything about the movie's plot, what's interesting to note about it is the stylization of the title. It isn't typed out as "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," but rather written with a pause in the middle: "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood." Is this simply a creative choice on Tarantino's behalf? It wouldn't be out of the ordinary, as he did purposefully misspell "bastards" in Inglorious Basterds. On the other hand, is this indicative of something bigger? Could Once Upon a Time in Hollywood be the first of a number of Tarantino films set in a specific time and place in the U.S., ones whose titles all begin with "Once Upon a Time..."? The upcoming flick is meant to be Tarantino's penultimate one, as the director has long said he's making 10 films and then retiring; and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood will be his ninth (it says it right there on the poster). Still, there's no telling whether he'll change his mind and continue churning out movies post Hollywood.
Billed as a "Western of a different stripe," an "old-school L.A. story à la Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown," and "the kind of city epic only a nostalgic of Tarantino's wit and peculiarity could attempt to really do justice," Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is due out on July 26.
