Why Quentin Tarantino Abandoned The Movie Critic, His Tenth and Final Film

When will we be able to see Quentin Tarantino's tenth and final (if we believe the filmmaker's word) film? Since Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019), a true "Tarantino-esque" homage to the seventh art with Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie in the lead roles, the American director has been keeping a low profile. Radio silence on the big screen. And this absence could last for a long time. The cinema giant has just revised its plans and disrupted all its projects. For good reason, it abandoned The Movie Critic , the feature film on which it had been working for the past few years, whose release was brought forward to sometime in 2025. A guest on the podcast The Church of Tarantino , Saturday, August 16, the filmmaker returns to this decision for the first time.

What could have happened? Was it a lack of inspiration? Absolutely not, according to Quentin Tarantino. The script was even finished, having given the director a hard time, as he had originally envisioned his project as an eight-episode miniseries. The filmmaker was proud of his pages, which he managed to rewrite in order to adapt the plot to a feature film. The director took the opportunity to reveal a little more on The Movie Critic. The story was still to take place in Los Angeles, as in his previous film, except that it was no longer 1969 but 1977. The feature film was to follow the life of a renowned film critic. And above all, the film had nothing to do with Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood. The character of Cliff Booth, played by Brad Pitt, was not going to return, dashing the hopes of his fans. If Quentin Tarantino was inspired by The Movie Critic, he realized that he wasn't really enthusiastic about " the idea of directing " what he had written.

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The reason? The Movie Critic wasn't anything career-boosting for Quentin Tarantino. There were no big challenges. " There was nothing to invent. I already knew more or less how to transform Los Angeles into a city of the past. So, basically, it was too close to my previous film." So he preferred to put his idea aside to try to tackle more complex projects. The director specifies, however, that he remains very attached to his script. " The thing is, I really, really like what I did. Because I set myself a challenge: Can I take the most boring profession in the world and make an interesting movie out of it? Who wants to see a movie called The Movie Critic ? That was the test. If I can make the story of someone who spends their life watching movies compelling, then that's a success." And I think I succeeded,” he says proudly.

Quentin Tarantino also took advantage of this podcast to reveal his favorite works from his filmography. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood is his "favorite film," he reveals. Inglourious Basterds , "his best feature film, his masterpiece" and Kill Bill, the film he was "meant to make." While we still don't know when he'll return behind the camera, Quentin Tarantino is currently focusing on writing a play, the details of which remain unknown. In the meantime, those who loved Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood can look forward to the sequel soon on Netflix, this time directed by David Fincher. The project was entrusted to the American filmmaker because Tarantino refused to make his latest film a sequel.