One scene from Babylon accidentally features a billboard for Jackass Forever. Babylon, which is the latest outing from La La Land director Damien Chazelle, hit theaters on December 23, 2022 and has been nominated for three Oscars. The film, which stars Margot Robbie, Diego Calva, and Brad Pitt, is set in Hollywood largely in the mid-1920s during the industry’s turbulent transition from silent cinema to sound.
This week, Twitter user Owen shared a post revealing a major mistake in a Babylon scene set in 1950s Hollywood.
The Tweet shows an image from the film featuring people walking down a Los Angeles sidewalk where 1950s cars are parked at the curb. Peeking out from behind the trees in the background is the corner of a billboard for the fourth Jackass film Jackass Forever, which was released in theaters on February 4, 2022, presumably around the time that this particular Babylon scene was shot.
Babylon Can Fix This Mistake (But Should They?)
Babylon has not yet been released on Blu-Ray and DVD, though it’s probable that the discs have already been printed. However, it would be possible to digitally edit the Jackass Forever billboard out of the scene for future physical releases. This change could also be applied more or less immediately to any places where the film is streaming digitally.
There is precedent for major changes being made to films either during or after their theatrical runs. This includes Tom Hooper’s notorious 2019 musical Cats, which had a newer version with more polished visual effects sent out to theaters in the first week of its run. George Lucas has also famously released digitally edited versions of his original Star Wars trilogy decades after the fact, editions that have now become the primary way to access the sci-fi classics.
However, there might be a benefit to keeping the Jackass Forever billboard as an Easter egg in Babylon. For one thing, having a notorious movie mistake like this might draw more people toward being interested in seeing the film, which underperformed in theaters. Additionally, even though it’s a period film, this billboard could be a subtle homage to the time and place it was filmed, much like the quick glimpse of a masked crew member in 2021’s Don’t Look Up, which was kept in to honor the hard work of film crews during the pandemic.
Source: Owen/Twitter