Quentin Tarantino has finished writing his last film. He just does not plan to shoot it yet. The director shared the news on a talk show this week, and fans of his long-promised retirement plan now have a new update to chew on.
Tarantino appeared on ‘The Graham Norton Show’ in London. It was his first visit to the show in more than a decade. Ellen DeGeneres, Colin Farrell and Gemma Chan were on the same episode.
The host asked about his future. Tarantino said he has a script he likes. But he wants to put it aside for now. He plans to finish his play, spend time with his family and then decide what he wants to do next. The phrase that caught on was “live a little.”
So the script exists. The film does not have a start date. Tarantino has not said when cameras might roll.
The play comes first
The project keeping him busy is ‘The Popinjay Cavalier’. It is a stage show, and it is his first big play. It stars Sacha Baron Cohen and opens at London’s Phoenix Theatre next March. Previews begin in late February. The run lasts three months and ends on June 13.
The story did not begin on stage. Tarantino first wrote it as a screenplay. Then he changed his mind. He realized it worked better as a play.
He described the tone on the show. It borrows from swashbuckling adventure movies and adds the feel of a French farce. That means sword fights, silly plots and fast, funny talk. It is a long way from the blood-soaked westerns he is known for.
Tarantino was upbeat about it. He said he thinks the show will be thrilling. At its launch he said he wanted to give the West End a great night out.
Why “live a little”
Tarantino is 63. He has spent more than three decades making movies. He has often said that he wants to leave before his work slips.
Family is part of the picture too. He and his wife, Daniella Pick, have two children and a third on the way. A new baby and a London stage run leave little room for a film shoot. Directing a feature takes years of his life. Prep, shooting and editing all eat time.
His own words point to a break. He wants to “see who I am” after the play.
The ten film promise
Tarantino has said for years that he will stop at ten movies. He says a director’s late work often gets weaker. He would rather go out strong.
His count is a little unusual. He treats the two ‘Kill Bill’ films as one movie. That makes ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ from 2019 his ninth film. His list so far runs like this:
– ‘Reservoir Dogs’ (1992)
– ‘Pulp Fiction’ (1994)
– ‘Jackie Brown’ (1997)
– ‘Kill Bill’ (2003 and 2004)
– ‘Death Proof’ (2007)
– ‘Inglourious Basterds’ (2009)
– ‘Django Unchained’ (2012)
– ‘The Hateful Eight’ (2015)
– ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ (2019)
That leaves one slot. Fans have waited a long time to see how he fills it.
A long wait since 2019
It has now been seven years since his last film. That gap will reach eight years by next summer, since no new movie will arrive by then.
The gap is odd for a director who once made a film every few years. But he has not been idle. He wrote a novel based on ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’. He also wrote a book of film essays called ‘Cinema Speculation’. Now he has a stage play.
The last film has had a rocky road
This is not the first script he has lined up for the finale. In 2023, he planned a film called ‘The Movie Critic’. It was set in 1970s Los Angeles. Reports said he then scrapped it and chose to start over.
He later wrote a script that follows Brad Pitt’s stuntman character, Cliff Booth. David Fincher is set to direct that film for Netflix. Tarantino is not directing that one. So it does not count as his tenth.
There is another point. He has dropped a script before and come back to it. After ‘The Hateful Eight’ leaked, he abandoned it and talked about turning it into a novel. He later changed course, and the film came out in 2015. So a pause does not always mean a script is dead.
What we know about the script
Nothing. Tarantino gave no title. He gave no cast and no plot. No story details have come out for the tenth film. It is not even clear if this script is new or an older draft he revised.
Some reports have raised a fair question. A script can lose its shine when it sits in a drawer. Tarantino may want it to rest before he decides to shoot it. That fits his habits. He is known to rework his scripts many times.
- Quentin Tarantino
