Viewers got a surprise first look at The Adventures of Cliff Booth during Super Bowl LIX. The sequel to 2019’s smash hit Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, as the title would imply, will follow Brad Pitt‘s Cliff Booth, stuntman, handyman, and alleged wife-murderer, in a new escapade in mid-century Los Angeles. The film is set to be released sometime later this year.
In the new trailer, Cliff is decoupled from his onetime partner Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), but has a new partner in crime in the form of Elizabeth Debicki. What exactly they’re getting up to is unspecified, but Rick is pretty sure it’s a “good story.” In fact, it’s too good a story for all the kids and sensitive types watching the biggest football game of the year, so Netflix has made sure it’s been sanitized for our protection, censoring all the substance use, cursing, and copious nudity with faux film scratches, possibly as a partial homage to Pitt’s rogue projectionist Tyler Durden in Fight Club… which was also helmed by The Adventures of Cliff Booth’s David Fincher. However, despite the censorship, we still get some excellent 1970s action scored to a cover of the classic Peter Gunn theme.
What Do We Know About ‘The Adventures of Cliff Booth’?
Unlike its predecessor, which was written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, The Adventures of Cliff Booth will only be penned by Tarantino, with Fincher behind the camera; it is the first script Tarantino has handed off to another director since 1996’s crime horror thriller From Dusk Till Dawn. Only one character is slated to return from the first film: James Stacy, the real-life Western TV star who was played in the original by Timothy Olyphant. In addition to Pitt, Olyphant, and Debicki, the cast will also feature Scott Caan (Hawaii Five-0), Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Wonder Man), Carla Gugino (The Fall of the House of Usher), Holt McCallany (Mindhunter), and Peter Weller (RoboCop). The film will presumably take place in the wake of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which saw a quick-thinking Cliff change history by averting the Manson Murders.
The Adventures of Cliff Booth is reportedly Fincher and Tarantino’s most expensive movie to date, and sports a budget of over $200 million USD. However, its predecessor was Tarantino’s biggest box office hit, bringing in $392 million on a $96 million budget, as well as critical acclaim and a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Pitt.
The Adventures of Cliff Booth will be released in select theaters and on Netflix later this year. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.’