Considering the purely entertaining reads that are Quentin Tarantino’s first pair of books—his expansion of Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood and the recently released Cinema Speculation—it’s certainly fine by us for the director to take his time on announcing any plans for his 10th and final film. However, novel-writing isn’t the only thing keeping the filmmaker busy.
While at the last stop on his book tour for Cinema Speculation, at New York City’s Times Square venue The Town Hall, Tarantino revealed he has written an eight-part limited series he plans to shoot next year. While he was tight-lipped about sharing any more details (even cheekily shouting a “f*ck y’all” to a lively audience cheering for more information), he defiantly confirmed this new project would not count as his final film.
Along with mentioning that he wrote a play prior to the making of his 2019 film that he hopes to get off the ground, the wide-ranging conversation with moderator Elvis Mitchell touched on Brian De Palma, Taxi Driver, Jackie Brown, and Pauline Kael. Tarantino regaled the audience with the story of the only time he spoke with Kael—after growing up vehemently disagreeing but respecting her reviews, until they clicked on Carrie, “one of the best reviews ever written”—when Mitchell connected the two over the phone just months prior to her death in 2001.
When poised with the question of what the future of cinema entails, Tarantino predicted a major turning point will only become clearer in the next three or four years. While he held hope for the future of boutique cinemas, he questioned if making a film for Netflix really constitutes being a movie (resulting in a laugh from Mitchell, who just debuted his first film on the platform) and bemoaned the 30-day theatrical window before a film simply gets dumped on “television.”
As seemingly customary these days, he was also asked about his thoughts on Marvel. His love for the comics is well-documented, even contemplating directing a Luke Cage movie starring Laurence Fishburne decades ago. Nowadays, while he would never dream of joining the Marvel machine, the only interesting property for him would be Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos, though he agreed with Mitchell that he already made his version with Inglourious Basterds. With much pride, he also exclaimed how far ahead of the curve he was in terms of an interconnected universe, noting The Vega Brothers and more.
As for other potential revenue sources during his future retirement, there’s one not to count on. He vehemently rejected the idea of ever doing a script polish for another project. Recounting the story of being heavily pushed to do a pass on Samuel L. Jackson’s Shaft remake, he proudly claimed his writing is his “well water” and he wouldn’t be giving that away.
As we await details on his forthcoming series, we at least expect it to contain more of his voice than prior television work on the likes of E.R. and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. In the meantime, Cinema Speculation is now out and well worth a read, but a fair warning: you’ll also want to carve out time to revisit every film mentioned in the book.