Brad Pitt really is everywhere as the year winds down. After Heart of the Beast, due in cinemas on 25 September, the actor also headlines The Adventures of Cliff Booth on Netflix, where he returns to one of his most memorable roles of recent years: the stuntman working for Leonardo DiCaprio in Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood. A hugely exciting project already, given that it pairs David Fincher behind the camera with Quentin Tarantino on script duty. An explosive double act you get a taste of right at the start of this second trailer, with a nod to that controversial Bruce Lee scene. At the time, the scene drew a response from Shannon Lee, Bruce Lee's daughter, who took Tarantino to task for portraying her father as an arrogant, cartoonish figure. Clearly, Tarantino fancied laying it on a bit thicker...
« Tu connais l’histoire du cascadeur qui a dérouillé Bruce Lee ? » Brad Pitt then follows up with another dig, this time aimed at Leonardo DiCaprio and his character Rick Dalton. Asked why he no longer works with him, Cliff simply replies that he has « devenu trop gros » to go on being his stand-in. The sarcastic tone of this new outing is clearly entirely deliberate.
The story takes place in 1977, eight years after the events of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Cliff isn't quite the stuntman he once was, and Los Angeles no longer has much use for a bloke who settles problems with his fists. So Cliff has become a kind of "fixer", a man in the shadows tasked with tidying up the embarrassing messes of stars and industry figures. When he gets a call from Karen Crosby, a talent agent played by Elizabeth Debicki, to deal with the case of television superstar Charlie Peters (played by Scott Caan), he quickly finds himself caught up in something far bigger than a simple favour for a celebrity. The second trailer hints at scandals, secret meetings, car chases and a few situations that look like they go south rather quickly.
Fincher and Tarantino, hand in hand
The other big curiosity here is obviously the meeting of David Fincher and Quentin Tarantino. The two filmmakers work in very different worlds, and this new Cliff Booth adventure looks like it wants to blend their two sensibilities. While there are familiar elements from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, notably the love of cinema and the playing around with formats, the mood here feels far darker and much less colourful than the 2019 film. The Hollywood of 1977 looks less glamorous, with tales of killers, gangsters, corpses and all manner of dodgy dealings. A playground that feels pretty natural for Fincher, while letting Tarantino keep developing Cliff Booth rather than simply remaking the first film.
The Adventures of Cliff Booth will first play for two weeks in IMAX cinemas from 25 November 2026 in the United States, before landing on Netflix on 23 December. In France, it'll just be on your telly. Yep, that's the way it is, mate.
