Leonardo DiCaprio and Quentin Tarantino surprised CinemaCon attendees Monday night, taking the stage in Las Vegas to hype up their upcoming collaboration without giving away too many plot details.
"Sony and myself will be coming to the theaters with the most exciting star dynamic since Paul Newman and Robert Redford," Tarantino said of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, according to the Hollywood Reporter. "It's very hush-hush and top secret. But I can tell you that Once Upon a Time in Hollywood takes place in 1969, at the height of the counterculture hippie revolution and the height of new Hollywood." This summer, Tarantino added, he and his team will transform the city of Los Angeles "block by block" into 1969 Hollywood.
Tarantino, who's set to star alongside Brad Pitt, said Tarantino's script is "one of the most amazing" he's had the privilege to read. "It's hard to speak about a film that we haven't done yet, but I'm incredibly excited to work with Brad Pitt, and I think he's going to transport us," DiCaprio said. "I'm a huge fan of Singin' in the Rain, movies about Hollywood."
Though Tarantino and DiCaprio apparently didn't mention this at CinemaCon, the film—described by Tarantino as "probably the closest to Pulp Fiction that I've done"—is expected to tackle the timely Charles Manson topic. In a previous statement announcing Pitt's casting back in February, Tarantino revealed that DiCaprio's character's neighbor is none other than Sharon Tate.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood will mark the first Tarantino project since the Weinstein scandal and frequent Tarantino collaborator Uma Thurman's revealing New York Times interview. In the piece, Thurman recounted a harrowing Kill Bill stunt sequence. Tarantino, who handed over footage of the shoot in question for inclusion in the article, later called the crash in question "one of the biggest regrets of my life."
