Tarantino changes his mind on The Movie Critic: what will the director’s next film be?

Plot twist. There was a lot of waiting around The Movie Criticwhat should have been his tenth and final film as director Quentin Tarantino. The feature film anticipated by the author of Hyenas and the filming of which was supposed to begin in the next few months will no longer be done. The decision to abandon the project was made by Tarantino himself, leaving the public stunned. It is not the first time that the filmmaker has chosen to put aside a feature film: it had already happened in 2013 with The Hateful Eightbut the reasons were different.

In the case of his eighth film, the script was leaked onto the web before production even began, prompting the director to temporarily abandon his intriguing western. After a rewrite of the script and a theatrical reading for charity, however, Tarantino was convinced to proceed with it The Hateful Eight, creating a cinematically incredible title. For The Movie CriticAt the moment, the same thing doesn’t seem to happen. The film appears to have been permanently cancelled, and reflecting on Tarantino’s adamant position to abandon directing on the tenth feature film, the choice appears completely decisive. This obviously reopens the debate on the Knoxville author’s next project, who has several interesting and conclusive ideas in directorial terms. But what was The Movie Critic about? What are the reasons for abandonment? And what are the possible films that Tarantino could focus on?

Pornography, goodbye!

After securing a large tax credit to shoot the film in California and teasing Sony Pictures for the purchase of the rights after the success of Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood, Tarantino suddenly put it aside The Movie Critic. The project seemed at least partly inspired by his semi-autobiographical work in the essay Cinema Speculationespecially in the will to use the cinema of the 70s as a starting point for an unpublished and original story that had the flavor of closing a cycle, even a bit meta and quotationist. Filming – according to the initial agenda – should have actually started at the end of January, but was postponed due to a substantial rewriting of the film’s screenplay by Tarantino, intent on writing the best possible work according to his ambition. Rightly so, if it has to be the last film, then let it be great, unrepeatable and memorable. Unfortunately, it seems that the author was not at all satisfied with the final work, at least not enough to be considered valid and suitable for concluding his career as a director. As a great expert of the seventh art at 360 degrees, with The Tarantino Movie Critic wanted to explore cinema starting from the caustic and irreverent analyzes of a journalist outsider that the author read at a young age. He wrote about it in a soft-porn magazine, in a dedicated column, and dealt with mainstream titles.

The director defined it “a second line critic, cynical as hell, brilliant and a sort of cross between the first Howard Stern and what Travis Bickle might have been if he had become a film critic”. The protagonist was all a program, in short, and it’s a shame reading this description now that you no longer have the chance to admire him in action on the big screen. Considering the author’s other activities, however, it is likely that he may reuse the script of The Movie Critic for the development of a novel (or another essay) or even a theatrical piece, a medium that the author has repeatedly said that he is curious to explore in the future.

The Tenth

For the leading role in the now discarded tenth film, Tarantino had once again eyed Brad Pitt, which would thus have reached the third collaboration with the director. As time passed, however, the news became confusing, because the author’s idea actually seemed to be to give Pitt back the role of the stuntman Cliff Booth already interpreted in Once upon a time in Hollywood, so as to reuse it in continuity from ’69 to ’77 and also show the changes in Los Angeles and the character. There was then speculation about the presence of other past protagonists of Tarantino cinema, rumors however never confirmed. Before even saying goodbye The Movie Critic and after the affair The Hateful Eight, the director had also decided to abandon the development of a Star Trek film forbidden to minors, which he considered “too big” And “not really suitable to be the last feature film”leaving in a creative limbo an interesting concept. It is unlikely that he will take up that idea of ​​gender again to end his career, just as it is unlikely that he will be able to adapt his Cinema Speculation to the big screen in a sort of autobiographical and meta-cinematic work as recently done by Steven Spielberg, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu or Paolo Sorrentino.

Perhaps he is working on a more complex and definitive idea or perhaps he is not working on it at all, perhaps waiting for the great inspiration that could arrive immediately or in a few years. However, there is a film that has been anticipated for a long time, tantalizing for fans, capable of containing many different genres and also playing with the same Tarantino’s filmography. We’re talking about a possibility Kill Bill Vol. 3an idea that had already intrigued the legendary author a few years ago, capable of effectively closing a circle and satisfying the most hardcore enthusiasts, putting aside the trend of historical and returning to the much adored pulp of the beginning but updated to the present. The most suitable film for “kill” a career, therefore, is what the title promises to kill. In this sense, should you opt for Kill Bill Vol. 3we would not see any type of error.