Quentin Tarantino reveals his reason for axing ‘The Movie Critic’: “There was a challenge”
The world was waiting for a new Quentin Tarantino movie, and it seemed we might have got it when rumours of the director’s tenth movie began swirling around the internet.
But the news soon went quiet, and the reported picture The Movie Critic, was put on ice. The movie now seems unlikely to thaw at any point as Taranitno has revealed the reason he axed the project.
During a conversation with Church of Tarantino: “I wasn’t really excited about dramatising what I wrote when I was in pre-production, partly because I’m using the skillset that I learned from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood [of] ‘How are we going to turn Los Angeles into the Hollywood of 1969 without using CGI?’”
Recorded in Los Angeles at his coffee shop Pam’s Coffy, the director continued: “It was something we had to pull off. We had to achieve it. It wasn’t for sure that we could do it. … The Movie Critic, there was nothing to figure out. I already kind of knew, more or less, how to turn LA into an older time. It was too much like the last one.”
Tarantino was quick to dismiss the chatter that The Movie Critic was in any way tethered to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Despite Brad Pitt being attached to star – a move that inevitably set tongues wagging about a possible return of Cliff Booth – the director insisted no characters are crossing between the two stories. Instead, he described the new project as a kind of “spiritual sequel,” sharing an atmosphere rather than a narrative.
“The thing about The Movie Critic is I really, really like it,” he said, leaving the door open to picking up the script back up at some point int he future.
However, to do that, he would need to overcome one big issue. “But there was a challenge that I gave to myself when I did it. ‘Can I take the most boring profession in the world and make it an interesting movie?’” Tarantino said. “Who wants to see a TV show about a fucking movie critic? Who wants to see a movie called The Movie Critic? That was the test. If I can actually make a movie or a TV show about someone who actually watches movies interesting, that is an accomplishment. And I think I did that.”
However, those desperate for a new Taranitno production won’t have too long to wait, as he shared that as well as The Adventures of Cliff Booth — the actual sequel to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood — he will be opening a play in the West End in 2026.
He also had a note for those who believe his tenth, and apparently final film, was too big a task for him to even conceive of: “It’s a little crazy to listen to podcasts and hear all these amateur psychiatrists psychoanalyse as if they fucking know what they’re talking about about what’s going on with me, about how I’m so scared, alright, of my tenth film,” Tarantino said, launching into an impression for his speculative fans. “‘Oh my god! Oh my god! I’m so fragile about my legacy. What’s going on? I’m paralysed with fear!’ I’m not paralysed with fear. Trust me.”
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