There’s A New Movie Coming Out About The Manson Murders
Fans of the true crime genre will have another movie to sink their teeth into when Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” debuts on August 9, 2019. The film takes place in 1969 in Los Angeles, during the time leading up to the infamous Manson Family murders.
In case you need a refresher, here’s some background on the brutal crimes that are the subject of the film:
The world was stunned on August 9, 1969, when actress Sharon Tate and four others were brutally murdered by the Manson Family, a cult led by the manipulative leader Charles Manson.
Tate, who was married to “Rosemary’s Baby” director Roman Polanski, was pregnant and just weeks away from giving birth to the couple’s child at the time of her death. All those murdered were killed in and around Tate and Polanski’s Los Angeles home on Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon.
The next night, on August 10, members of the Manson Family killed two additional people.
In 1971, Manson was convicted of murder and conspiracy to commit murder, for which he was sentenced to death. The following year, the death penalty was abolished in California (although it was later reinstated), thus commuting Manson’s sentence to life in prison.
Manson was denied parole 12 times, and eventually died while still imprisoned at the age of 83 in 2017.
Tarantino’s Film
The star-studded cast of the Tarantino-directed film includes Leonardo DiCaprio as Rick Dalton, a former Western TV star, and Brad Pitt as Cliff Booth, Dalton’s stunt double. In Tarantino’s film, Dalton lives next door to Tate, who will be played by Margot Robbie.
Tarantino is also in talks with Burt Reynolds to play George Spahn, an elderly blind man who let Manson and his followers to live on his ranch in the months before the murders.
Tarantino said that the project is a long time coming and expressed his enthusiasm for finally bringing it to life.
“I’ve been working on this script for five years, as well as living in Los Angeles County most of my life, including in 1969, when I was seven years old,” Tarantino said in a statement. “I’m very excited to tell this story of an L.A. and a Hollywood that don’t exist anymore. And I couldn’t be happier about the dynamic teaming of DiCaprio and Pitt as Rick and Cliff.”
Will you watch “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” when it is released?