After scrapping his planned final film The Movie Critic, Quentin Tarantino needs a new project for his tenth and final film…
Quentin Tarantino needs no introduction. To even casual moviegoers, his name carries the kind of weight that few directors have managed in modern cinema. Whether you think he’s a cinematic deity, or vastly overrated, it’s clear that studios have seen enough throughout Tarantino’s career to give him cart blanche ever since Pulp Fiction cemented him as one of the most influential auteurs in the business.
His first two films revolved around crime and gangsters, with the lithe Reservoir Dogs focused on a singular story and replaced by a grander web of narrative strands and characters in Pulp Fiction. Then came Jackie Brown which saw Tarantino take on Elmore Leonard and craft a severely underrated and nostalgic (contemporary set) throwback to 70s cinema, aesthetics and music. By this point, he’d shown an ability to cast and resurrect actors long out of the limelight and help them deliver career-best performances, whilst simultaneously giving the likes of Michael Madsen and (especially) Samuel L. Jackson a launching pad to a whole other level.
In the new century, his work took an even more distinctive term into irreverent spins on the kung-fu revenge picture, war films (crossed with exploitation B pictures) and the Western and plenty of cross-pollination within those. If Tarantino loved a certain genre, film, director, or Ennio Morricone, chances are some reference or even actual composition, would make it into one of his films.
His last outing, Once Upon a Time In Hollywood, drifts and ambles in a way that’s nearing pastiche of himself. Totally indulgent, stuffed with asides that for mere mortal directors might be deemed unnecessary, but still packed with glorious moments of inspired Tarantino-ism. Since then, Tarantino has reaffirmed his intention to end after his tenth and final feature and for a time we’ve been expecting that to be a trip back to the 70s with The Movie Critic. With that now hitting the skids, it seems Tarantino will go back to the drawing board (or even potentially to another dormant lost project).
One film many fans are calling for is a new instalment of Kill Bill. There’s even been the argument that a third outing for ‘The Bride’ (Uma Thurman), possibly focused on her daughter (to undoubtedly be played by Maya Hawke) shouldn’t count as a full picture in Tarantino’s list of 10, given that the previous two instalments were counted as one film. Still, could the clamour for another film mean Tarantino revisits the world of Kill Bill? Those films felt well-timed to coincide with a boon in kung-fu-centric cinema from a time when The Matrix had injected cinema with a predilection for it. Would it still work, or would the Bride have to evolve to something more focused on the popularity of MMA which has informed the action of films like John Wick?
Much like his contemporary, Paul Thomas Anderson, the possibilities of where Tarantino might go, are endless. Anderson has shown a gift for jumping between wildly different projects, whilst certain nostalgic eras do tend to reoccur in his oeuvre (like Tarantino himself). Both have a real affection for the 70s, that’s for sure. Would Tarantino go for something grand and epic, or opt for something more self-contained and perhaps lithe? It feels unlikely we’d ever see Tarantino to go back to something like Reservoir Dogs which came in at a tight 100 minutes.
Tarantino has also been long rumoured in the same breath as a couple of long-running franchises. A Tarantino Star Trek was at one juncture, close to happening in a universe that doesn’t immediately scream Tarantino, but would undoubtedly have been interesting. The chances of that one being resurrected are slim, particularly given an undoubted reluctance for the producers to make something that would feel inherently more Tarantino than Trek. As a cinematic ‘enterprise’ (see what I did there?), the box office pulling power for a big Trek movie now is debatable.
Less solid were wishful rumours that Tarantino had considered making a Bond movie. It was a murmur around the time Daniel Craig had first been cast, suggesting Tarantino may have fancied doing a standalone along the lines of Never Say Never Again, that would reinstate Pierce Brosnan for a one-off. However, Tarantino was reputedly keen on the Casino Royale book as a basis and of course that was the launch piece for Craig’s era. Still, Bond is currently in transitional stasis and still to confirm its new star. Once that happens a director will likely be attached, but I for one would love to see someone like Tarantino (or Christopher Nolan) rejuvenate Bond, which was growing stale at the tail end of Craig’s era.
Okay, the chances of QT’s Bond happening are on par with Bill Cosby resurrecting his titular show to record ratings. One of Tarantino’s biggest gifts is in creating such distinct cinematic landscapes. He beautifully evokes a time and place, but with a unique Tarantino-realism that injects playful fantasy into the worlds. Whether it’s the Cannon-esque B movie theatrics of Inglourious Basterds, set during World War II, or his blaxploitation Western, Django: Unchained, Tarantino brings his worlds to life like few others.
Tarantino has no great affection for the 1980s, despite the potential visual scope (and soundtrack potential) of the era, so you’d probably rule that period out. Although he’s made contemporary films, his cinema is so laden with nostalgia that it’d be very difficult to picture him doing a straight-up contemporary set film, without some kind of angle. It feels like he might revisit the 70s again, or at least dress the modern era up in flares and perms. The 60s feel like an era that Tarantino could use as a limitless mine of creative inspiration. A Tarantino ode to the spy cinema of Melville perhaps?
Whatever Tarantino decides to end with, there’s a strong likelihood many of his regulars will return. Can you imagine a new Tarantino film without Leonardo DiCaprio or Brad Pitt now? Without a Sam Jackson role? No, me neither. My own preference would be to see one former fanciful rumour finally come to pass. In the early rumblings of Inglourious Basterds, about an expendable band of soldiers hunting Nazis, the rumour mill hoped Tarantino might head up a collection of 80s and 90s action heroes, akin to what we eventually saw (to mediocre effect) with The Expendables.
Even at advanced ages, a Wild Bunch-esque blaze of glory starring Stallone and Schwarzenegger (as well as a few more action folk and a whole range of seasoned character actors) would be a perfect Tarantino base to start from and a swansong I could definitely get behind.
SEE ALSO: The Films Quentin Tarantino Wrote But Didn’t Direct
