Damien Chazelle Says After ‘Babylon’ Flop, He Won’t Get That “Kind Of Budget Anytime Soon”

A critically reviled box-office bomb or an ambitious and misunderstood marvel that deserves reappraisal? It may take more than a couple of years to assess the legacy of Damien Chazelle‘s “Babylon.” But wherever you stand on the 2022 movie, everyone agrees it was a lot of movie: excessive, derivative, audacious, debauched. A film that polarizing isn’t easy to evaluate, and it remains to be seen if time will be kinder to Chazelle’s latest than initial critics and audiences were.

READ MORE: Damien Chazelle Calls ‘Babylon’ A “Poison Pen Hate Letter To Hollywood,” But “A Love Letter To Cinema”

And what Chazelle’s career ends up being after “Babylon” also remains to be seen. The director has laid low since the film lost $87.4 million for Paramount after its theatrical run wrapped. All told, the numbers say “Babylon” made just $15.4 million stateside on an $80 million budget, with $48 million additional gross globally. That’s a bust, and it guarantees that Chazelle won’t get that kind of money for whatever he makes next. But it doesn’t necessarily mean his filmmaking career is over.

Chazelle stopped by the “Talking Pictures” podcast recently for an interview, and when asked about his creative future and the failure of “Babylon,” he didn’t sound that fazed. “I’ve kind of had my head in the sand and been sort of busy writing. So, I’ll get a taste of how it’s changed or not [since “Babylon”] once I finish this script and try to get it made,” he said about getting a sense of how his career momentum has changed following that film. “I’m in a sort of trepidatious state of mind, but I‘ve no illusions. I’m not going to get a budget of “Babylon” size any time soon, or at least not on this next one.”

“I guess I’ve learned the hard way that there will be a part of me that’s always anxious regardless of whether the previous one worked or not,” Chazelle continued. “But certainly, in financial terms, “Babylon” didn’t work at all. You try to not have that affect what you’re doing creatively, but, at some level, it can’t help but affect it. But maybe that’s okay? I’m really of mixed mind about it, so I guess I need to try and do what I would have done regardless. And who knows? Maybe I won’t be able to get this one made. We’ll have to wait and see.”

It sounds like Chazelle has rolled with the punches critics and audiences threw at “Babylon” a little over a year ago. And despite how harsh some critics were on the film (The Playlist’s review panned it), it has its champions and was a hit across the pond in France. But not getting the same budget (and free reign creatively) as he did on “Babylon” for his next picture feels all but assured at this point. Even if Chazelle did describe his latest film as a “poison pen letter to Hollywood” he’s by no means blacklisted by the industry, and critics will definitely have eyes on what he chooses to do as a rebound.