When it comes to his tenth and last movie, Quentin Tarantino is starting over from scratch. The Hollywood Reporter has been informed by sources that the auteur is abandoning The Movie Critic, despite having been ready to begin filming it this year.
For months, Tarantino has been refining The Movie Critic. It was originally inspired by a pessimistic movie critic that the filmmaker had grown up reading and is set in 1977 California. However, sources claim that during the process, it changed course and became a movie in which Brad Pitt would play Cliff Booth, the stuntman he played in Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, for which he won an Oscar. It’s unclear if this movie was intended to be a Hollywood prequel or a sequel set in the 1970s. However, in recent weeks,
Once more, Tarantino had second thoughts and left the movie completely.
In order to be eligible for a $20.5 million California Tax Credit, the project was scheduled to film for one day in August before starting production in earnest in early 2025. That is off the table for now.
The Movie Critic was never attached to a studio, making it the latest of Tarantino’s abandoned projects. He has previously contributed to a previously-canceled R-rated Star Trek film project at Paramount. There were rumors that Tarantino’s most recent film would fit in perfectly with Sony, which released Hollywood.
Since Tarantino said that he would be retiring from filmmaking after completing one last film, his tenth, the feature had been the topic of much conjecture since THR first revealed the news about it in March of last year. (If you count the two-part Kill Bill flicks as one feature, he has directed nine films.)
He has insisted for a long time that he wants to retire at the top of his game.
He said, “I want to stop at a certain point,” to Playboy in 2012. As they age, directors don’t grow any better. The final four movies in their discography are typically the poorest. I’m really proud of my career, and one terrible movie ruins three excellent ones. I’m not that desperate,
out-of-touch comedy in my filmography, the movie that makes people think, ‘Oh man, he still thinks it’s 20 years ago.’ When directors get out-of-date, it’s not pretty.”
Tarantino is expected to continue working in the creative fields even after he makes one last feature. He has suggested directing limited series or plays could be in his future. He is also now a novelist, publishing a novelization of Hollywood in 2021. Among its revelations was a deeper understanding of Cliff Booth’s backstory and psychology.
