Quentin Tarantino is again insisting that he plans to quit making movies after his 10th feature. Of course, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” is his ninth feature, so that just leaves one more. The more I think about it, the more I realize that ‘Hollywood’ just feels like a towering final statement from Tarantino.
So, fine, Tarantino has reiterated the fact that he wants to end his career at 10 movies. I have, justifiably, prayed that he wouldn’t end it with his R-rated Star Trek movie, a passion project which seems to have started a few years back. Just to recap: Tarantino had pitched an idea to ‘Trek’ producer J.J. Abrams about an R-rated ‘Star Trek’ movie. This set off Abrams into sending scribe Mark L. Smith (“The Revenant,” “Overlord”) down QT’s way so that they could collaborate and share ideas, which they have been doing ever since.
Well, good news, QT isn’t doing it anymore:
“I think I’m steering away from ‘Star Trek,’ but I haven’t had an official conversation with those guys yet,” revealed Tarantino. “In a strange way, it seems like this movie, Hollywood, would be my last. So, I’ve kind of taken the pressure off myself to make that last big voilà kind of statement.”
He continued, “I mean to such a degree there was a moment when I was writing and went, ‘Should I do this now? Should I do something else? Is this the 10th one?’ No, no don’t stop the planets from aligning, what are you, Galactus? If the Earth is saying do it, do it. Not that it was an argument, but a little thought, like, ‘Well, if I’m gonna go out like Max Ophüls style, Lola Montez, this is it, and if It’s not good, then all my other work is trash, alright.’ This would have been the one. But in a weird way, it actually kind of freed me up. I mean, I have no idea what the story of the next one’s going to be. I don’t even have a clue.”
Tarantino has also hinted at potentially directing a horror movie, but, surprisingly, he says that Rob Zombie’s “Halloween” films have given him some solace in the fact that he didn’t end up making his own slasher film because Zombie did it so well.
“But the thing is now, I am a big fan of the Rob Zombie ‘Halloweens,’” he explained. “When I saw the first one, I didn’t like it at all. I didn’t like the aesthetic. I didn’t like everything that he added to it and then the last hour just becomes this fast forward remake of the first one. What the fuck is all this shit? Eight months later, I watched it on video… and I really liked them once I got all the preconceptions out of my head.”
This whole notion of retiring after 10 movies comes from the director’s theory that a director’s quality of work only gets worse as it goes along. Tarantino wants his filmography to be perfect or, as he puts it, “without a misfire.” I know some may not agree that he hasn’t had a misfire, but I do. I even loved “Death Proof” and “The Hateful Eight.”
And so, the sky’s the limit for QT as to which project he would love to end his career with. Maybe he could finally give us that Vega Brothers/Pulp Fiction spinoff which has been rumored now for the better part of two decades.