It’s a bit of a game of misinformation and telephone out there. Quentin Tarantino was on the “The Church Of Tarantino” podcast late last week and explained why he canceled his “The Movie Critic” movie at the last minute. Most outlets have reported that Tarantino reasoned that he didn’t want to make his tenth and final film a sequel, but as we just reported, “The Movie Critic” isn’t a sequel.
At best, it’s a loose spiritual sequel, but as Tarantino explained in the podcast, “They take place in the same world and they take place in the same town, but there were no crossover characters,” he explained. “[Brad Pitt’s] Cliff Booth was never in ‘The Movie Critic.’ That’s all a bunch of bullshit. That never was the case ever, ever, ever. It is the same town except set in 1977 as opposed to 1969.”
Alright, facts. So why did Tarantino nix “The Movie Critic”? Well, the answer is somewhat similar, but much more nuanced. As he explained, the movie started as an eight-episode series, then he decided to write it into a two-hour movie as a challenge to himself.
“The thing about ‘The Movie Critic’ is I really, really like it, but there was a challenge that I gave to myself when I did it,” he explained. “Both as a series and as a movie: ‘Can I take the most boring profession in the world and make it an interesting movie?’”
The filmmaker also suggested “The Movie Critic” didn’t feel like a big Tarantino event.
“I heard [podcasters say] ‘OK, there is no Tarantino title more soft cocky than ‘The Movie Critic,’” he said, suggesting maybe they were correct. “Every Tarantino title promises so much except ‘The Movie Critic.’ Who wants to see a TV show about a fucking movie critic who wants to see a movie called ‘The Movie Critic’? You [podcasters] are right!”
Tarantino said he was pleased with the final product and passed his own “Can I make this interesting enough?” test, but apparently, it was not enough to actually go through with making it.
“That was the test. If I can actually make a movie or a TV show about somebody who watches movies interesting. That is an accomplishment. And I think I did that, and I think I did that all right,” he said.
“So, I pulled the plug on it. And the reason I pulled the plug… So what end up happening, why I lost my desire…and frankly, to tell you the truth, it was pre production that made me realize that I didn’t have…I was so excited about the writing, but I wasn’t really that excited about dramatizing what I wrote,” he revealed.
Tarantino implied that what made him lose his enthusiasm for dramatizing the film was that it was similar territory to “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood” because it was the same world, and one of his favorite things to do when making a new movie is creating a new world.
“Once we were in pre production, partly because I’m using the skill set that I learned from “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” he elucidated. “When we started ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,’ it was like ‘How are we going to turn Los Angeles into the Hollywood of 1969 without using CGI?’… It was something we had to pull off. We had to achieve it. It wasn’t for sure we could do it.”
“And that has always been the case of every single movie I’ve done,” he continued. “He was like, well, how exactly am I going to do this? And I don’t know the answer at the beginning of pre-production. How will we burn down the theater in ‘Inglourious Basterds’ and actually have real fire and real people in the real fire and pull this off without having to do some phony special effects? How are we going to do that and not kill anybody?”
Tarantino said he loved to “figure out” how to dramatize what he had written on the page, and there was no sense of discovery in creating the ‘Movie Critic’ world.
“[With] ‘The Movie Critic,’ there was nothing to figure out because I already knew more or less how to turn LA into an older time,” he explained. “So it’s just too much like the last one.”
Now here’s where it all shifted, changed and evolved with what’s happening today, “The Adventures of Cliff Booth” movie that David Fincher is currently shooting. The filmmaker said that if he revisited 1960s and 1970s Hollywood, why not just do that with Brad Pitt’s Cliff Booth character instead?
“And then I wrote the Cliff Booth movie because I was like, ‘Well, if I’m going to go back to that world, well, everyone really likes Cliff Booth,” he explained. “And I love Cliff Booth and he seems like he could be the star of a series of paperbacks, you know? So, it was like another adventure with him would be different, and that’s what the audience wants. And I think Brad wants it, and I want to work with him in another great role. And so, then I wrote the Cliff Booth movie.”
But of course, Tarantino didn’t learn his lesson, and the same reasons he didn’t make “The Movie Critic” are pretty much the exact reasons he didn’t direct “The Adventures Of Cliff Booth” and handed it off to David Fincher instead at the behest of Brad Pitt, who wanted to make it still.
“And then I got under pre-production and it was the same fucking thing!” Tarantino said, seemingly a little annoyed at himself for not realizing he would face the same challenge of trying to muster enthusiasm for territory he had already covered.
“It was like, ‘Well, yeah, I love this script, but I’m still walking down the same ground that I’ve already walked,’” he explained. “And there are no questions. There are a few things, as far as certain sequences and everything, but as far as the ‘How is this ship going to sail?’ question, which is always a question in my mind. There was no question that the ship would arrive at port. There’s no question that we won’t sink. There’s no ceiling for me to hit my head on. And it just kind of unenthused me as we went forward.”
“So, I finally just pulled the plug and went, ‘No. This last movie has to be, I’ve got to not know what I’m doing again. I’ve got to be in uncharted territory and have an idea how I’m going to pull it off, but not really know,” he continued. “And there has to be something to achieve.”
Later on in the interview, Tarantino spoke about the enthusiasm to carry on forward with a film through the writing, all the way through the press tour, in more crass terms.
“My dick’s not that hard about old shit, [I’ve done]. If my dick’s not hard, it’s easy for me to lose enthusiasm,” he said. “So, I’m not walking around carrying this hard on about a movie I did four years ago. And you need a bit of a hard-on because you’ve got to go and run around and do a whole press tour. Jesus fuck, fuck that shit.”
To that end, don’t expect to see the longer cut of “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood,” because to Tarantino, that’s more been there, done that.
Asked if he would release the longer version of ‘OUATIH’ on say Netflix, Tarantino said that didn’t interest him.
“No, I wouldn’t be that precious about ‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood,’ he rationalized. “As far as like the longer version of it, I mean, it’s already cut.”
Despite constantly iterating in the moment about possible spin-offs, “The Vega Brothers,” idea, the ‘Inglourious’ concept, “Killer Crow,” etc, Tarantino said, ultimately, “I’m always thinking about the next thing and not just about mining the older stuff.”
Listen to the whole podcast conversation below.
Rodrigo Perez is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Playlist, which he launched in 2008. He has worked in entertainment journalism since 2000, including at MTV, and has written for SPIN, IndieWire, Pitchfork, Complex, Magnet, and various music, film, and entertainment publications over the past two decades.
