The first trailer for Waltzing With Brando, the new biopic about the iconic Godfather actor has dropped and we are, frankly, blown away by Billy Zane‘s take on Marlon Brando. The Titanic actor has so completely transformed in the role, it took us more than a few minutes to clock that it even was Billy Zane in the film.
The film, which also stars Napoleon Dynamite star John Heder, the Bill Fishman-directed feature has officially been picked up by VMI Worldwide for foreign sales, according to exclusive reporting from Variety.
What Is The New Marlon Brando Movie About?
Waltzing With Brando is based on the memoir by Los Angeles-based architect Bernard Judge. In his 2011 book, Waltzing with Brando: Planning a Paradise in Tahiti, Judge recounts his time planning and building a series of rustic bungalows for the iconic actor on a remote Tahitian atoll called Tetiaroa — a tiny, uninhabited island owned by Marlon Brando in French Polynesia. Taking place between 1969 and 1974, while Brando was preparing to film The Godfather and Last Tango in Paris, the film follows Heder’s Judge as he tackles the wild (literally and metaphorically) project alongside Brando and his idiosyncratic desires.
At the time, Brando was the most famous actor in the world, filming Mutiny on the Bounty when he found and bought the tiny deserted island. His desire was to not only escape the hustle and bustle of living in Hollywood as the most famous actor in the world, but also show the world how to live and create an ecologically sustainable existence. To do this, he recruits Judge — at the time an obscure young architect in Los Angeles — to build what Brando hopes to be “the world’s first truly sustainable ecological retreat.”
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Billy Zane transforms into Hollywood icon Marlon Brando in new look at Waltzing with Brando.
Zane completely disappears into the role in the trailer on every level — physically, emotionally, and vocally. The quirky dynamic between Brando and Judge is at the heart of the trailer and film, focusing on all of the former’s big and unexpected ideas, like creating potable water on the island out of his own pee. (Allegedly a real thing the actor attempted to do.)
In a quote from Judge’s daughter in his 2021 LA Times obituary, Sabrina described the affair as “such a Robinson Crusoe experience.” A young child at the time, she spent some time on the atoll during the construction. “We had to fish for dinner every night,” she said.
The film is set to be the closing night feature at film festivals including the Tahoe Film Festival and the Palm Springs International Film Festival in the United States, and the Torino Film Festival in Italy. There is no official word on a release date yet, but it is being sold by VMI Worldwide, and feels primed to be picked up and brought to the world in 2025.
Additional cast members include Richard Dreyfuss, Rob Coddry, as well as Emily in Paris’ Camille Razat, Smallville‘s Alaina Huffman, Wayne’s World‘s Tia Carrere, and James Jagger of Vinyl and being-Mick-Jagger’s-son fame.
This is not the first time Brando has been depicted in film and television during this timeframe. In 2022, Grey’s Anatomy actor Justin Chambers also depicted the star in The Offer, a Paramount+ mini-series about the making of Francis Ford Coppolla’s The Godfather.
