New movie where Tobey Maguire is the ‘creepiest, most depraved’ role needs to earn around $250m to make profit

A new movie with a star-studded cast, including Tobey Maguire playing a ‘creepy’ and ‘depraved’ role, needs to pull in $250m at the Box Office - and the way things are going that looks unlikely.

Damien Chazelle’s Babylon centres on the 1920s hedonistic era of Hollywood and stars Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Diego Calva and Maguire. You can see a trailer here:

However, despite packing in more stars than the Milky Way, Babylon hasn’t been a huge hit in the Box Office and could struggle to make the $250m it reportedly needs to break even.

During its opening weekend, Babylon took $5.3m at the domestic Box Office, according to Deadline.

All is not lost, as the movie is yet to be released outside of the US - but with Deadline predicting it will be lucky to hit $20m in the domestic market, it will need to be incredibly successful elsewhere if it hopes to turn a profit.

Although it's early days - the movie only landed in cinemas in the US on 23 December - Babylon has 7.5 on IMDb and a less than impressive 55 percent on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.

Paramount

Babylon tells the story of numerous characters at a time of unbridled decadence and depravity just as Hollywood was starting out.

And none of the characters shown are more 'depraved' than the drug-addled James McKay, played by Maguire.

Director Chazelle revealed to Entertainment Weekly that Maguire got to choose what character he wanted to play.

He said: "It's sort of funny now looking back, it was actually Tobey who picked out of this range of options this character, McKay, which was sort of the creepiest, the most depraved of all of them.

"I don't know what that says about Tobey, but that's what he picked."

The outlet also spoke to Maguire to get his side of the story as to why he decided to pick James McKay.

PictureLux / The Hollywood Archive / Alamy Stock Photo

When asked by the outlet why, out of all the roles in Babylon, he chose that particular one, Maguire said: "Oh, that's a good question - I don't know.

"There was something kind of appealing about playing James, because he was unusual and I really liked the character.

"I liked the role that he plays in the story, and where he comes [into play], hoisting the film and these guys into that underbelly, into that world. It seemed like fun.

"And I didn't have a really clear vision of what I would do, which was kind of exciting.

"There was just a lot of possibility in the characterisation."

Topics: Film and TV, Brad Pitt

Claire Reid

Claire is a journalist at UNILAD who, after dossing around for a few years, went to Liverpool John Moores University. She graduated with a degree in Journalism and a whole load of debt. When not writing words in exchange for money she is usually at home watching serial killer documentaries surrounded by cats.