Is there nothing more amusing/sad than an actor clinging to a part that set sail a long time ago? We’ll get to that in a second.
You might remember a few months ago around the time of Quentin Tarantino’s second “Kill Bill 3” announcement (he had spoken about the desire to do a third and fourth film around the release of “Kill Bill 2”), we did a little feature on the Abandoned Tarantino Babies: all the Quentin films he talked about, but never came to pass.
On the top of that list of projects that will never happen was “Double V Vega” otherwise known as the “Vega Brothers.” As we wrote:
…the long-in-gestation prequel to both “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction,” would have followed the exploits of characters within the Tarantino-universe: Vic Vega (Michael Madsen’s character from ‘Resevoir’) and Vincent Vega (John Travolta’s character from ‘Pulp, yes they were brothers) during the latter’s time in Amsterdam.
Tarantino held a torch for this project for years—even during press for “Kill Bill,” he claimed it was still very much a possibility. In a 2007 interview with “Opie & Anthony,” he said he briefly considered making it a sequel (which is strange because both characters died in their respective films), “I actually came up with a way I could have done it, even being older and dead where they all had older brothers and both of their brothers got together because the two guys died. And they wanted revenge or something like that. But now, [the actors] are too old for that.” He concluded by finally admitting “it’s kind of unlikely now.”
So then why is Michael Madsen still talking about this project? It is because he still pines for the idea? We’re guessing he wouldn’t mind returning to a film with some degree of stature continuing than the rut of generic/low-budget/straight-to-video fare he’s been stuck doing of late.
Madsen was recently was asked about the project on the WAAF Boston Hill-Man Morning Show (via Cinematical) and revealed that Quentin seems to have found a way (albeit an ludicrous one) to do a sequel. But wait, how? Both characters are dead. Well, where there’s a will there’s apparently a way. Madsen says,
“Quentin decided that John [Travolta] and I got too old to make a prequel,” he explained, but then added when asked if the project was done said, “No, actually Quentin went down to Tijuana recently, and on his return he said that he came up with an idea that the movie didn’t have to be a prequel, that John and I could play each other’s twin brothers.”
“I’d be Vic Vega’s twin brother,” Madsen explained. “[Travolta would] be Vincent’s twin brother and we’re both on a flight from Los Angeles, having just been released from prison, and neither one of us know that we’re the twin brother of the other one and we’re both on our way back to LA to avenge the death of our brothers.”
Umm, Quentin? Stop smoking pot and pounding tequila in Mexico, seriously (and Madsen makes a joke about this too). We wish we were making this up, but here’s the clip. Odds on this ever happening? You decide, but we’ll go with “never”.