![Damien Chazelle's next movie set](https://deadline.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/GettyImages-1648537572.jpg?w=681&h=383&crop=1)
UPDATE: Paramount just announced during its CinemaCon presentation that the film will open in 2025.
EXCLUSIVE: La La Land Oscar winner Damien Chazelle has found the first film he will direct for Paramount Pictures since signing an overall deal with the studio. Plot details are vague, but sources tell Deadline that Chazelle is set to direct an untitled film for Paramount based off an original script he wrote. While unconfirmed, insiders say the film will be set in a prison.
He will produce along with his partner Olivia Hamilton through their Wild Chickens banner.
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It is unknown when the film will go into production since no other talent is attached, but sources say Chazelle and Paramount execs are expected to get busy soon in meeting with A-list talent for a project that is sure to attract a long list of suitors.
Chazelle signed his overall deal with Paramount at the end of 2022 after working with the studio on his most recent film, last year’s Babylon, and while he and Hamilton are producing a number of films at the studio like Heart of the Beast — which just added David Ayer as its director — this marks the first film Chazelle would direct since signing the deal.
Chazelle has become the type of writer-director who, when word gets out he has a new script on the market, sees top-tier talent pushing to get a meeting. He also has proved capable of directing any type of film — whether its a modern-day musical like the 14-time Oscar-nominated La La Land, a thrilling biopic about the first moon landing like First Man, or a gripping drama like Whiplash which earned him an Oscar nom for Adapted Screenplay. He has the talents to handle any genre, and prison drama is sure to excite fans of what his version could look like.
He is repped by WME.