When news first broke that film auteur Quentin Tarantino was abandoning his largely materialized 10th and final film, tentatively titled “The Movie Critic,” Hollywood-watchers were both surprised and not surprised at all.
To the ones who weren’t surprised: Tarantino is an oddball, and that’s probably an understatement.
Creative genius? Absolutely. Hardheaded, almost to a fault? Indeed.
Additionally, abandoning an anticipated project isn’t something new for Tarantino, given that “Star Trek” fans are still waiting for that R-rated film.
The one who were surprised: Tarantino, for as quirky and weird as he is, clearly still put a lot of thought and passion into “The Movie Critic.”
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To just up and abandon it seemed like a move out of left field.
Surprised or not, however, a new report from The Hollywood Reporter is shedding some light on just how deep the rabbit hole went when it came to “The Movie Critic.”
(For the unaware, Tarantino has vocally expressed his fear of becoming stale and out-of-touch, so he set his 10th feature film to be his last, though he still plans to stay in the industry, whether with television or plays.)
First, according to THR, “The Movie Critic” went through extensive revisions from Tarantino, but the film was still expected to begin production this year, with proper filming in 2025.
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That alone should give you a clue as to just how close Tarantino was.
Second, THR divulged some potential plot details for the film that seemed far beyond the scope of what Tarantino typically does (telling hyper-stylized, self-contained stories).
“The film’s exact story details are not known, but sources familiar with the project dropped a couple intriguing ideas to THR that Tarantino was toying with,” the outlet noted. “One was that the Hollywood-set tale could serve as a Tarantino goodbye meta-verse with the director’s earlier movies existing in the same era of The Movie Critic (which could work, given that his films have a ’70s vibe).
“That way, Tarantino could bring back some of the stars of his earlier work to reprise their iconic characters in ‘movie within a movie’ moments, or to play fictional versions of themselves as the actors who played those characters.”
Another round for Samuel L. Jackson as Jules and John Travolta as Vincent? Uma Thurman reprising The Bride once more? Mr. Blonde, Mr. Orange and Mr. Pink again?
How could any Tarantino fan not salivate at the thought of that meta story?
Third, THR also pointed out the litany of big-star names that were attached to the project at various points. Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie and Jamie Foxx were all rumored to be attached to Tarantino’s grand finale.
The biggest name in all the rumors was Tom Cruise.
“Cruise, in Tarantino lore, was first eyed for Pitt’s Once Upon a Time role, but scheduling forced him to bow out,” The Hollywood Reported noted. “Fans were shipping a Cruise-Tarantino pairing, but The Movie Critic wasn’t actually going to bring them together. According to sources, Cruise hadn’t even met with the filmmaker for a role.”
That’s a whole lot of time, effort, and big names circling “The Movie Critic,” a film that will never be made, apparently.
Ultimately, THR painted Tarantino’s rejection of “The Movie Critic” as being akin to a child losing interest in old toys when Christmas brings new ones.
“Those who know Tarantino (who had no comment for this story) aren’t saying precisely why he shelved the film, only that he had grown more excited by other ideas,” THR reports.
Additionally, an unnamed source told the outlet that Tarantino “has a lot of scripts that he’s thrown away.”
