The “Berlin Game” Trilogy
Tarantino has flirted with the spy movie more than once across his career, and it’s certainly a genre that feels most ripe for him to tackle. And Tarantino has raised the possibility of a British take on the genre based on a series of novels by Len Deighton, the author of “The Ipcress File.” He told the UK press just around the release of ‘Basterds,’ “I love England. It would be a wonderful life experience to have an excuse to work here for six or nine months. One of the things I am musing about doing is the trilogy of Len Deighton books, ‘Berlin Game,’ ‘Mexico Set‘ and ‘London Match.’ The story takes place in the Cold War and follows a spy name Bernard Samson. What is attractive is the really great characters and the wonderful opportunities of British and German casting.” (It’s worth noting that the novel has already appeared in a Tarantino film — Robert Forster‘s character is reading it in “Jackie Brown.”) Previously played by Ian Holm in a TV adaptation called “Game, Set & Match,” some have speculated that Tarantino could be thinking about casting Simon Pegg as Samson, who he said in the same interview he wanted to work with after scheduling didn’t work out on ‘Basterds’ (he was originally meant to play Michael Fassbender‘s role). But Tarantino hasn’t mentioned it once since, and given his feelings on adaptations, this was probably just a passing fancy. Still, he recently met with Tim Roth. Wishful thinking?
A Documentary On Harvey Weinstein
Tarantino has suggested of late that, when his retirement comes, he may spend much of his time writing books on film history. But a few years ago, he was flirting with a documentary, and one that lands closer to home than most; a film about his long time patron and distributor Harvey Weinstein. In the run up to the release of “Unauthorized: The Harvey Weinstein Project,’ a doc by Barry Avrich about the Miramax founder, the New York Times said that Tarantino was considering making a non-fiction film about his friend, confirmed by his publicist, who said the filmmaker was “unofficially kicking around the idea.” Given that Weinstein was probably wanting to try and play down attention on Avrich’s film, and that the idea has never been mentioned since, and while it may have been a distraction technique, but we’d still be fascinated to see Tarantino take on documentary filmmaking at some stage. “Kill Bill Vol. 3”
Speaking of sequels, Tarantino has, even since the last “Kill Bill” landed nine years back, refused to rule out the possibility of returning the story of Beatrix/The Bride, saying even before “Vol. 2” of the plot: “Sofie Fatale will get all of Bill’s money. She’ll raise Nikki (the daughter of Vivica A. Fox‘s character), who’ll take on The Bride. Nikki deserves her revenge every bit as much as The Bride deserved hers.” At one point, there was the idea of some animated prequels, and while shooting ‘Basterds,’ he raised a third “Kill Bill” as a possibility to be his next project. He’s said in the past that he wanted a ten year gap, which could mean it’s starting to come up on his radar again, but the signs aren’t great. In 2009, he said, “there’s no script; there are just ideas and notes” and he was recently more candid, saying “I don’t know if there’s ever going to be a ‘Kill Bill Vol. 3.’ We’ll see, probably not though.” Still, you never know if he’s going to change his mind.
“Double V Vega”
Having long-since revealed that “Reservoir Dogs” thug Mr. Blonde or Vic Vega (Michael Madsen) and “Pulp Fiction” killer Vincent Vega (John Travolta) were brothers, Tarantino spent decades talking up a possible project, known as either “Double V Vega” or “The Vega Brothers,” that would team up to the two. Initially a prequel that would follow the two during Vincent’s time in Amsterdam, Tarantino held a torch for the project for years — even during press for “Kill Bill,” he claimed it was still very much a possibility. The age of the actors presented a problem, but Tarantino had a Plan B, telling telling Opie & Anthony in 2007 that “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 he ultimately concluded “Now, [they’re] too old for that. It’s kind of unlikely now.” Madsen talked it up as recently as 2010, telling a morning show, “I’d be Vic Vega’s twin brother. [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.” Fun thought, but it still seems like this one is pretty much dead in the ground.
“40 Lashes Less One”/Other Elmore Leonard projects After the success of “Pulp Fiction,” Tarantino reportedly asked the Weinsteins to buy the rights to several novels by the “filet of the crime genre” Elmore Leonard, for potential future projects. There was “Rum Punch,” which Tarantino made into “Jackie Brown.” Then there was “Killshot,” which was eventually directed by John Madden, starring Diane Lane, Thomas Jane, Mickey Rourke and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Long-delayed, and something of a mess, it finally hit in 2008, with QT’s “executive producer” credit removed. Miramax also had “Bandits,” which didn’t seem to go anywhere (it’s unconnected to the 2001 Bruce Willis/Barry Levinson film), and “Freaky Deaky,” the rights to which reverted back to Leonard (a bad version, starring Christian Slater, Crispin Glover and Andy Dick, went straight to video last month). But it seems like the one that got closest to production was one of Leonard’s westerns, the 1972 novel, “40 Lashes Less One.”
The book concerns two prisoners — an Apache and a black former soldier — that while on death row, are given a chance to be set free if they can hunt down and kill the five worst outlaws in the west (shades of “Kill Bill,” and now ‘Django’). In 2000, rumors were flying that Tarantino was clandestinely making the film in Mexico, and in May 2001, a vague post on QT’s former writing partner Roger Avary’s blog led people to think the film would be playing at Cannes. However, Cannes came and there was no sign of any Tarantino film. Soon the call came from his people to confirm that there was no such film in the works. That said, there was some fire where there was smoke. In 2007, Tarantino said he now owns the rights, had completed 20 pages of a script, and “still might do it sometime.” Whether that’s the case still is a bigger question. He may have scratched his western itch with “Django Unchained” (then again, maybe not; see below) and he told Charlie Rose in 2009 that he will never direct another adaptation, having felt in retrospect, slightly emotionally removed from “Jackie Brown” because it was not his own original work. If he changes his mind about that for anything, we’d guess it’ll be for another Leonard adaptation, but our gut says that this particular title is too close to his other work to become a priority.
“The Psychic”
While his films have often been steeped in it, horror remains one genre that Tarantino has never tackled. However, at one point he was considering a remake of the ‘70s Italian psychological horror film by Lucio Fulci about a clairvoyant woman, inspired by visions, who smashes open a section of wall in her husband’s home and finds a skeleton behind it (the director samples the film’s theme in “Kill Bill”). It’s an idea QT bandied about with the intention of it starring “Jackie Brown” star Bridget Fonda. In an interview with AICN back in 2000, Tarantino talked about the status of the movie saying, “It’s a project in the murky future. I don’t even own the rights to that stuff. It’s one of those things where it’s like if somebody buys the rights to make it, I won’t make it. They can totally fuck it up. If it’s meant to happen, it’ll happen.” Since it’s been almost ten years, we’re going to assume it wasn’t meant to happen.
