Paramount yesterday made some major announcements about streaming and movie releases yesterday and announced a rebrand.ViacomCBS is now officially Paramountand “starting in 2024, all Paramount movies will stream directly on [Paramount+] after their theatrical run is through”. There was also information about their blockbuster slate over the next couple of years includingMission Impossible 8(2024) andA Quiet Place: Part III(2025). This year, though, one of their most highly anticipated releases will be Damien Chazelle’sBabylon:

Babylon圣诞节将在剧院,能听懂吗andably means they have Oscar hopes for this film, given Damien Chazelle’s track record and this cast. They wrapped on the film in the fall so he’s had a few months in post, the film should be ready well in time for the holidays, it’s just a matter of whether or not they’ll take it to the festivals. Like Cannes, for example. If Cannes is too early,Babylonseems like the perfect fit for Venice and TIFF.

In other Brad Pitt news, he was just seen in Paris this week:

Brad was there with his friend, the artist Thomas Houseago. Brad the art guy, hanging out with his art friend, doing his art things…and I guess he’d much rather people talk about his art sh-t and not his actual sh-t. The actual sh-t being the ongoing mess with his Make It Right project.

You’ll recall, Brad was all-in back after Hurricane Katrina building homes for people in New Orleans. Only those homes were poorly constructed – there was mold, there was rotting, there were bugs, it has been a nightmare for the homeowners, the homes have already been torn down because they were totally uninhabitable, and the homeowners are now suing all the people involved in the project, including Brad. A class action lawsuit was filed in 2018 and their lawyer went on television recently to talk about what a disappointment it’s been:

"They believed in [Brad Pitt]. They believed in the dream he sold them. Unfortunately, what they got is a bunch of broken promises…living in rotten houses that should be torn down to the ground and started over."

But Brad and Make It Right are not taking responsibility. In a statement released toBanfield, his representatives said that:

"Brad was involved at the beginning to help the people of the Lower Ninth Ward, and obviously it is upsetting to see what happened after he had stepped back from the project and others took over. His attorneys have made it clear that he has no legal liability for the decisions made by others, but Brad remains personally committed to doing whatever he can to helping resolve the ongoing litigation. It was always something that was important to him from the beginning and he very much wants to help facilitate this getting to a much more positive end."

This is shady, right? For over a decade now these homeowners in New Orleans haven’t had much that’s been positive related to this situation. So whatever Brad’s been doing to “facilitate this getting to a much more positive end”, it hasn’t been enough. I’m sure his lawyers have all kinds of reasons why he shouldn’t be held accountable for this but he was also celebrated back in the day for this initiative. And now that it’s gone to sh-t, well, actually it doesn’t seem like he’s wearing it – not financially and not reputationally.

This whole mess hasn’t gotten much coverage at all. Brad Pitt built homes that fell apart? Nobody talks about it, at least not at a very high volume. Not even when he did that thing withthe Property Brothers last yearremodelling a home for someone, even though hilariously and sadly and ironically, his own f-cking housing project was a literal disaster.

But he’s a Hollywood Golden Boy. He skates. Or, rather, sculpts. He’s an artist, ok!