Tarantino Is Bringing Brad Pitt and Leo DiCaprio Together for His Manson Film

Quentin Tarantino's second-to-last film finally has a name—and a pretty nuts cast list. Brad Pitt has signed on to star alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in the new movie, titled Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Deadline reports. Both Pitt and DiCaprio have worked with Tarantino in the past on Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained, respectively, but Once Upon a Time will be the first time the actors have worked together, save for some weird, branded short film back in 2015 that no one ever saw.

While the new movie has been called Tarantino's "Manson film" and is set to drop on the 50th anniversary of the Tate-LaBianca murders, neither Pitt nor DiCaprio will be playing the infamous 60s cult leader. According to Sony Pictures, who won a massive bidding war for the film last November, DiCaprio will play a "former star of a western TV series" named Rick Dalton, and Pitt is onboard as Dalton's stunt double, Cliff Booth. Sure, Pitt doesn't look really anything like DiCaprio but, you know, movie magic or whatever.

Dalton and Cliff live in late-60s LA "at the height of hippy Hollywood" and are "struggling to make it in a Hollywood they don’t recognize anymore," Sony told Deadline, "but Rick has a very famous next-door neighbor… Sharon Tate."

In 1969, Manson thought up the pair of grisly murders—including the brutal slaying of a then-pregnant Tate and six friends inside her house on Cielo Drive—and helped put an end to the failed hippie experiment and usher in a new wave of paranoia in California that carried into the 1970s. It's unclear if Pitt and DiCaprio's characters will be directly involved in the Tate murders or cross paths with Manson directly, though Dalton and Booth's western TV history means they could very well find themselves at Spahn Ranch, the defunct Western film set turned commune where Manson and his hippie followers lived.

"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," Tarantino said, according to Deadline. "I’m very excited to tell this story of an LA and a Hollywood that don't exist anymore. And I couldn’t be happier about the dynamic teaming of DiCaprio & Pitt as Rick & Cliff."

Sharon Tate's casting has yet to be announced, but Margot Robbie, who is rumored to be on Tarantino's wish list for the film, seems like the obvious choice, especially since the actress told the Hollywood Reporter last January that she'd "kill to work with him."

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood will hit theaters August 9, 2019.

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