Quentin Tarantino is no longer making The Movie Critic as his tenth and final film. So what should replace it as the renowned director’s swan song?
The man behind Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction has said he intends to retire after making 10 movies, and he’s only got one left — so what will it be? It could be any of these, or something else entirely.
Bear in mind, Quentin Tarantino hasn’t said any of these projects could be his final film. They’re just ideas he’s talked about in the past that we would be interested in someday seeing.
John Brown Biopic
Despite being open about his dislike for biopics, Tarantino has said the 1800s abolitionist John Brown is his all-time favorite American hero.
“I don’t like everything. I like historical movies, but I am not a fan of the costume drama. Another genre I have no respect for is the biopic. They are just big excuses for actors to win Oscars. It’s a corrupted cinema,” he told The Talks.
He later told Charlie Rose, “There is one story that I could be interested in, but it would probably be one of the last movies I [ever make] … My favorite hero in American history is John Brown. He’s my favorite American who ever lived. He basically single-handedly started the road to end slavery and … he killed people to do it. He decided, ‘If we start spilling white blood, then they’re going to start getting the idea.'”
Killer Crow
Another Quentin Tarantino project that is potentially within the realm of possibility is this one he discussed back in 2012. Tarantino told The Root that he had a third movie in mind to make a trilogy out of Inglourious Basterds and Djano Unchained.
“I don’t know exactly when I’m going to do it, but there’s something about this that would suggest a trilogy. My original idea for Inglourious Basterds way back when was that this [would be] a huge story that included the [smaller] story that you saw in the film, but also followed a bunch of Black troops, and they had been f–ked over by the American military and kind of go apes–t. They basically — the way Lt. Aldo Raines [Brad Pitt] and the Basterds are having an “Apache resistance” — [the] Black troops go on an Apache warpath and kill a bunch of white soldiers and white officers on a military base and are just making a warpath to Switzerland,” Tarantino said.
He said it would be called something like Killer Crow, adding, “So that was always going to be part of it. And I was going to do it as a miniseries, and that was going to be one of the big storylines. When I decided to try to turn it into a movie, that was a section I had to take out to help tame my material. I have most of that written. It’s ready to go; I just have to write the second half of it.”
Kill Bill Volume 3
In 2007, Bennett Walsh, who produced the first two Kill Bill films, said that plot lines had been written for both Kill Bill Volume 3 and 4.
He said that the films could be shot in China, and that the third film would follow the revenge of the two killers who were mangled by Uma Thurman’s character in the first films.
In 2023, Tarantino said he wouldn’t be making Kill Bill Volume 3 because he was planning for his last movie to be The Movie Critic — but now that that’s not happening, maybe he’ll reconsider?
Grindhouse Sequel
Grindhouse is a double feature made up of Tarantino’s action-thriller Death Proof and Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror.
In 2007, Variety reported that “Rodriguez and Tarantino want to keep the Grindhouse series going. For his part, Tarantino wants to shoot an old-school Kung Fu movie in Mandarin with subtitles in some countries, and release a shorter, dubbed cut in others. If the movie plays to theaters packed with screaming patrons, the Weinsteins may be willing to indulge him.”
Maybe it’s not too late? Without the Weinsteins, of course,
Sgt. Rock
In 2021, Tarantino said he had once considered doing a movie about the DC Comics character Sgt. Rock.
“There’s a really good script that David Webb Peoples wrote for Sgt. Rock’ that I still think about doing that from time to time,” he told the Big Picture Podcast, via The Playlist. “I don’t think I will, but I think it’s a really magnificent script and I would do a good job with.”
Doubtful, but you never know.
Untitled Children’s Movie
Over a decade ago, another project the man himself discussed was that he’d like to do a children’s movie. Wouldn’t that be unexpected!
“I’ve actually always wanted to come up with a story that I wanted to do as a kid’s movie,” he told Reelz Channel, via IndieWire. “I remember from working at Video Archives that if a kid likes a movie, like say Mighty Ducks, they see that movie 20 times, 30 times. They know the names of all the kids in The Mighty Ducks and it’s like, that’s an audience member I want on my side! I just have to come up with the right storyline.”
Could this be more likely in light of The Movie Critic news? Perhaps!
Less Than Zero Remake
In 2010, Bret Easton Ellis told Vice that Tarantino had tried to get the rights to remake the 1987 movie Less Than Zero based on Ellis’ 1985 novel of the same name.
“Every week there seems to be someone trying to do that. I’ve heard that everyone from Quentin Tarantino to Gregg Araki has been trying to get through to Fox to let them remake it,” he said.
“But of course now it wouldn’t be Fox. It would be Fox Searchlight because it wouldn’t be a big studio film. But I wouldn’t be interested enough to participate in it, so I just keep hearing constant rumors about how so-and-so is trying to get the rights to Less Than Zero. And I don’t know if it could ever be really made the way that it is in the book. The book gets very, very dark.
In 2012, Ellis said again that Tarantino had “shown interest” in a remake. The two are friends, and Tarantino is one of the greatest of the recurring guests on the always excellent Bret Easton Ellis Podcast.
First Blood
In 2021, Tarantino also said on the Big Picture Podcast (via The Playlist) that he would like to make another version First Blood based on the 1972 novel by David Morrell, not as a remake of the 1982 Sylvester Stallone movie starring him as Rambo.
“I would do the novel,” he said. “And Kurt Russell would play the sheriff, and [Adam Driver] would play Rambo. Every time I read [the novel], the dialogue is so fantastic…[The film] would be so good.”
To be clear, he said that he would only do it if he wasn’t going to retire after making 10 movies — but until that tenth movie is made, there’s still hope.
Cliff Booth Project
During a 2021 conversation with Deadline, another Quentin Tarantino project arose: Tarantino expressed interest in doing a spinoff movie about Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood character Cliff Booth, played by Brad Pitt.
Booth is a Hollywood stuntman whose career fell on hard times because of rumors that he’d killed his wife. He was the stuntman for Leonard DiCaprio’s actor character Rick Dalton.
“Someday I’ll do his adventure in the POW camp,” Tarantino told Deadline.
Snake Belly
In 2022, another project he discussed was that he wanted to make a Monty Python-inspired comedy called Snake Belly.
“I’ve included comical sequences in my previous films, but this time I want to make a movie that is clearly in the comedy genre,” he said, according to Hard Drive
“Monty Python just seems like the perfect style to pay homage to. They truly were pioneering geniuses in the genre. I mean, when that giant foot smashes everything in the opening titles, it’s such a golden nugget. It’s a self-reflective moment acknowledging the inherent destructiveness of comedy. I’d like to explore that further, with life-sized props instead of the stop motion cutouts. Really feeling the visceral experience of all that garbage squishing through those giant, dirty toes. For the comedy, I mean. It will be hilarious.”
Knowing how much Quentin likes feet, could this one perhaps be more likely than others? Only time will tell.
Liked This List of Quentin Tarantino Projects That Could Replace The Movie Critic as His Next Film?
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