Legendary filmmaker Quentin Tarantino has long stood by his intent to retire from directing after he makes 10 movies.
As he’s made nine in his illustrious career, his tenth project, at least how it was envisioned, has reportedly been scrapped. The Hollywood Reporter shared that Tarantino has decided to start from scratch on his tenth feature, abandoning plans to make The Movie Critic.
What was once a project about an actual movie critic apparently shifted to a possible spinoff of his 2019 masterwork Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood starring Brad Pitt’s Cliff Booth. However, neither project will reportedly be realized at this time as Tarantino shifts to a new project altogether to round out his filmography.
Tarantino is no stranger to unrealized projects, having made a career of jumping from idea to idea without ever actually following through with them. Great filmmakers are understandably choosy, and Tarantino is no different. Although, some of these projects do sound cool. Let’s look at five tantalizing ones.
Double V Vega
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Once upon a time, Tarantino considered linking up the Vega brothers in his fictional universe for a crime caper. The project would’ve united John Travolta’s Vincent Vega from Pulp Fiction and Michael Madsen’s Vic Vega (Mr. Blonde) from Reservoir Dogs, but the actors’ age eventually factored into Tarantino never making the movie. What could’ve been!
Kill Bill Vol. 3
Tarantino has long flirted with the idea of making a third Kill Bill film, one that could possibly team up Uma Thurman’s The Bride with her real-life daughter Maya Hawke, who followed her mom’s footsteps into acting. However, Tarantino has always pushed against the idea of ever returning to the series, even as recently as last summer. This one doesn’t look like it’ll ever happen.
A Star Trek project
Could you imagine Tarantino ever making an R-rated Star Trek movie? It almost happened, with Tarantino going as far to actually talking with Paramount about the possibility of directing one. However, the chances of a standalone Tarantino Star Trek film (reportedly influenced by gangster films and involving time travel) cooled substantially in 2020. Consider us bummed, Scotty.
A James Bond movie
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In 2004, Tarantino expressed his interest in directing a James Bond movie, a direct adaptation of Ian Fleming’s original Casino Royale story to be exact with Pierce Brosnan’s 007. That, of course, never came to pass, as Martin Campbell returned to the Bond series with Daniel Craig a couple of years later with 2006’s series-altering smash hit Casino Royale. Although, Tarantino making his spin on a Bond movie with Brosnan set in the 1960s is just such a cool what-if to think about.
A medieval film with Helen Mirren
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In 2010, Tarantino reportedly talked with Helen Mirren about making a medieval film where she would play a foul-mouthed monarch. The idea of Tarantino taking his storytelling back multiple centuries to a world of knights, castles and jousting just sounds too good to be true. Well, it was, as this never went past initial reporting. At least we’ll have the thought of it.
