[UPDATE] June 27, 2018 11:25 am ET: We now have our first look at Leonardo DiCaprio & Brad Pitt in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
You can read our original story below.
Quentin Tarantino’s new Manson era film has an official release date. Variety reports that the filmmaker’s latest project will release on August 9, 2019 — the 50th anniversary of the day the Manson family carried out the LaBianca murders and the day after Sharon Tate was killed.
Following the premiere news, Tarantino and Manson film star Leonardo DiCaprio surprised CinemaCon attendees in Las Vegas Monday night with details of the much-anticipated picture, for-now titled Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
"Sony and myself will be coming to the theaters with the most exciting star dynamic since Paul Newman and Robert Redford," Tarantino began when speaking on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, per The Hollywood Reporter. "It's very hush-hush and top secret. But I can tell you that 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood' takes place in 1969, at the height of the counterculture hippie revolution and the height of new Hollywood."
For the movie, Tarantino and his crew will in turn transform Los Angeles "block by block" into 1969 Hollywood.
DiCaprio will star alongside Brad Pitt in the film, as he insists Tarantino's script is "one of the most amazing" he's ever read. "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."
Rumors have circulated that Tarantino’s movie will focus on Charles Manson and the 1969 murders carried out by his followers in California, however, according to reports, the film is not directly about the Manson Murders.
Vanity Fair summed it up as: “Set in Los Angeles in the summer of 1969, Tarantino’s upcoming movie, according to a source who read the script, focuses on a male TV actor who’s had one hit series and is looking for a way to get into the film business. His sidekick — who’s also his stunt double — is looking for the same thing. The horrific murder of Sharon Tate and four of her friends by Charles Manson’s cult of followers serves as a backdrop to the main story.”
If reports are to be believed, Margot Robbie has apparently been approached for the role of the murdered actress Sharon Tate, but just like Inglorious Basterds wasn’t really a film about Hitler, Tarantino’s movie won’t really be a movie about Manson.
Filming is set to start in June 2018 ahead of the 2019 release.
Now, here are 10 real life moments from 1969 that might inspire Tarantino’s Manson picture.