Quentin Tarantino Cancels The Movie Critic

Movies

Quentin Tarantino had a change of heart about his final film. For several years, Tarantino has said that his tenth movie will be his last, as he wants to stop directing before he loses his touch, and he was set to bow out with a film called The Movie Critic. He explained the plot to Deadline at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023 (where he screened Rolling Thunder at the Director’s Fortnight event because he rocks), saying it was about a guy who used to write movie reviews in porno magazines, which is based on his own experiences loading nudie mags into a dispenser as a teenager and being taken with the movie reviews in one. Brad Pitt was going to be in the lead (despite Tarantino previously saying Pitt was too old for the role), with many of the actors from Tarantino’s previous movies rumored to appear.

EXCLUSIVE: Quentin Tarantino reveals 1977's 'Rolling Thunder' as his surprise Directors' Fortnight screening here at #Cannes. The writer-director dedicated a chapter to the film in his last book Cinema Speculation. pic.twitter.com/mm9mWiDbds

— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) May 25, 2023

But it looks like that’s off, as Deadline exclusively reports that Tarantino has “simply changed his mind” and will not be making The Movie Critic. Supposedly, he was rewriting the script, which caused a delay in production, and he eventually decided against making the film altogether. As for what will take its place, Tarantino is said to be “going back to the drawing board” and figuring that out now. Deadline points out the similarity between this and the drama leading up to his eighth film, The Hateful Eight, during which his script was leaked by an agent (I remember he said it was either Michael Madsen’s or Bruce Dern’s), and Tarantino canceled the movie. After a reading, he reconsidered, did some rewrites, changed the ending, and made the film. Maybe that’ll happen again, but for now, The Movie Critic is off.

So, what will take its place? Kill Bill 3 is trending on X (which is how I learned about this story because no way I’m not clicking on that), and fans are excited at the prospect of Tarantino revisiting the world of The Bride (Uma Thurman). This is a film he’d been teasing for a long time, in which the daughter of Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox) would reach adulthood and hunt down The Bride to get revenge for her mother’s death. (Nitpick: it would be Kill Bill 2, or at best, Kill Bill Volume 3, because Kill Bill is one movie split in two; however, it probably wouldn’t be called Kill Bill anyway because… well, you know.) I’d love for this to happen because I adore Kill Bill, but I doubt this will be his final film. I think he’s moved on from Kill Bill and will likely do something completely new, as opposed to one of the many unrealized projects he’s mentioned over the years.

If we’re speculating about those, however (and why not have a little fun?), I’d be very interested in him making that Len Deighton adaptation he teased years ago. He wanted to make a movie out of the first three books in the Bernard Samson spy series (which is nine books long, making it an ennealogy – check out The Deighton Dossier for more facts like that), which are titled Berlin Game, Mexico Set, and London Match. These three were turned into a TV miniseries in the 80s, but Deighton hated it so much that he bought the rights to it just so he could make sure it disappeared. I’d love to see what Tarantino did with the characters and the sprawling spy story, especially since he’s a fan – in Jackie Brown, Robert Forster’s character, Max Cherry, is reading Berlin Game when he first springs Jackie from jail. But I don’t see this happening, either.

As for The Movie Critic, I wonder if he’ll turn it into a novel since he’s expressed interest in writing more books. That would be a great way for him to resurrect a bunch of his unrealized projects, especially if he follows through on his retirement. I’d hate for his work to be lost in the recesses of his mind.