Fez — A surprise teaser aired during the Super Bowl has offered audiences their first look at Brad Pitt reprising his Oscar-winning role as stuntman Cliff Booth in “The Adventures of Cliff Booth,” a sequel to “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”
Released by Netflix without prior announcement, the short teaser marked the first public footage from the project and immediately drew attention for its high-profile creative pairing.
The film is written by Quentin Tarantino, who directed the original 2019 movie, but is helmed this time by David Fincher, continuing his long-standing collaboration with the streaming platform.
A first look at Cliff Booth’s next chapter
Set to retro music, the teaser presents Booth in a series of brief, stylized moments: relaxing at a bar, moving through the back corridors of a film set, and driving a derby car across a dirt track. The footage opens with Booth icing an injured knee before encountering characters played by Elizabeth Debicki and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, both dressed in classic Old Hollywood attire.
In a playful nod to broadcast standards, flashes of nudity, cigarettes, guns, and obscene gestures are interrupted by tongue-in-cheek censorship gags. The teaser ends on a knowing note, with Booth placing an Oscar statuette on his desk, referencing Pitt’s Academy Award win for best supporting actor for the role in the original film.
From revisionist Hollywood to the 1970s
“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” concluded by rewriting history, with Booth and actor Rick Dalton preventing the Manson family murders in 1969. The sequel is set in the 1970s and centers fully on Booth, with Leonardo DiCaprio not expected to return as Dalton.
Joining Pitt in the new film are Scott Caan, Carla Gugino, Holt McCallany, and JB Tadena, while Timothy Olyphant is confirmed to reprise his role as James Stacy from the original film.
Fincher, Netflix, and Tarantino’s next move
Although Tarantino wrote the script, he handed directing duties to Fincher as he continues to search for what he has described as his tenth and final film. Fincher’s involvement extends his relationship with Netflix, which began with the series “Mindhunter” and includes features such as “Mank and The Killer.”
The project is produced by Tarantino, Pitt, David Heyman, Ceán Chaffin, and Stacey Sher, with cinematography by Fincher regular Erik Messerschmidt. Filming took place on location in Los Angeles, grounding the sequel once again in the industry landscape it portrays.
As anticipation builds ahead of its Netflix release, “The Adventures of Cliff Booth” is both a continuation of Tarantino’s revisionist Hollywood universe and a stylistic experiment under Fincher’s direction.
