Damien Chazelle’s Babylon is losing one leading lady & in her exit, a worthy successor is in talks to take her place. It has been announced that Emma Stone has exited the project & Margot Robbie is now in talks to replace her alongside Brad Pitt in the Hollywood period drama.
“Deadline” reports that Stone is exiting the film for scheduling reasons and that Paramount Pictures and Chazelle are right now in early discussions with Robbie to take the female lead role. These talks are said to be going well & the high-profile project remains on a strong footing at the studio due to Robbie being on the same level as Stone in terms of a big get for the film. Babylon is a period R rated drama, set in the shifting moment in Hollywood when the industry turned from silent film to talkies. When Paramount acquired the movie in late 2019, a Christmas Day 2021 release date was set to qualify for awards with a wide launch eyed for January 7, 2022. This was before the pandemic and obviously subject to change because the expectation is it will shoot at least in part in Los Angeles.
This film would’ve reunited Stone with her La La Land director, Chazelle after he directed her to Oscar-winning gold in that film. Robbie, all before hitting 30, has had one hell of a career. She has been Oscar-nominated twice & she’s coming off of Once Upon A Time…In Hollywood, Bombshell, and Birds of Prey from 2019 & early 2020. She has the James Gunn-directed The Suicide Squad on deck and her Lucky Chap produced the Oscar season film Promising Young Woman. She starts production in January on the David O Russell film alongside Christian Bale and John David Washington, and is developing Barbie as a star vehicle and is in production on Maid, the Netflix limited series she’s executive producing.
