Director Quentin Tarantino famously plans to make just 10 films. With 2019’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood serving as his ninth, the filmmaker only has one slot left before his self-imposed retirement.
The Movie Critic, which was rumored to be a high-brow meta-critique of the film industry and slated to be his final project, was officially canceled in April of last year during pre-production, with little explanation provided.
Speculation swirled that Tarantino succumbed to legacy pressures and canned the flick in the pursuit of going out on a career-defining high. However, the director has now offered a far simpler explanation.
“It was too much like the last one,” Tarantino said during a lengthy interview with The Church of Tarantino podcast.
The Movie Critic was set to showcase Los Angeles during the New Hollywood era, a subject thoroughly explored in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
“I wasn’t really excited about dramatizing what I wrote when I was in pre-production,” he continued. “There was nothing to figure out. I already kind of knew, more or less, how to turn L.A. into an older time.”
Tarantino hinted that the already-written film could be returned to later, but that, for now, he is focusing on other projects.
These include penning the script for The Adventures of Cliff Booth, a David Fincher-directed sequel to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which will follow Brad Pitt’s aging film star character. Tarantino is also planning a play, set to debut in London’s West End, before getting to work on his 10th feature.
The two-time Oscar winner clapped back at claims he was being too “fragile” about his legacy, stating: “It’s a little crazy to listen to podcasts and hear all these amateur psychiatrists psychoanalyze as if they f---ing know what they’re talking about.”
“I’m not paralyzed with fear,” he added. “Trust me.”
