As the July 26th release date for Quentin Tarantino’s hotly anticipated new film quickly approaches, a trail of tasty new Once Upon A Time In Hollywood tidbits have been dropping in the press.
First, an article in the Los Angeles Times describes the lengths the filmmakers went to recreating the iconic look of vintage Hollywood, quoting production designer Barbara Ling: “The main thing was to keep ourselves captured in a specific time frame in terms of graphics and ads and what, specifically, the buildings looked like. We wanted to be very close to what it was like in that summer in that year. The advertising was unique – what was on the billboards in that summer, at that time. That’s where Quentin is unbelievable. He’s a massive encyclopedia himself. He knew exactly what was playing in the theaters for many of the marquees we created.”
Second, Entertainment Weekly talked to producers David Heyman and producer Shannon McIntosh to get new details on the project, with Heyman calling it “Quentin’s most personal film. This is his memories of growing up in Los Angeles and being a fan of Hollywood.” They also wanted to clarify that it’s not a Charles Manson-murders movie. McIntosh states “It’s about the loss of innocence that came about in 1969,” while saying that Tarantino “absolutely embraced Debra Tate, and that was very important to him and to us that she’d be comfortable with what we’re doing because obviously anyone thinking that we’re making it a Manson movie, which we’re not, but he was very sensitive to that and remains sensitive to that.” McIntosh continues, saying Margot Robbie “wanted to honor Sharon’s memory and she really drilled down to make sure that she got the best performance and was really embracing all that Sharon was.”
Third, an exclusive new photo of Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate has debuted on IGN, with Hollywood producer David Heyman talking about Tate’s legacy, saying that she “has been mythologized in some way through the murders” but that in the new movie “we get to see her as a person and we get to see her delight and enthusiasm and her sweetness. … She represents an innocence and innocence lost in some way, and that innocence is very much – that sweetness, that goodness, that delight with the movies, with her, with her life – is something that we experience.”
Fourth, at a meeting for staff this week at Sony, Quentin Tarantino made a personal visit to share new footage from the film, debuting five minutes highlighting the characters played by Leonardo DiCaprio, Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt, and Al Pacino.