I loved reading THR’s tackling of the evolution, and subsequent downfall, of Quentin Tarantino’s now defunct “The Movie Critic.” It gives us some good insight into Tarantino’s struggle to find a satisfying idea for his final film.
“I don’t recall him rewriting so much and pushing a start date once he had a movie in mind,” one agency partner tells THR. They add that part of the reason why he left the project is that “he’s grown more excited by other ideas”.
So, what was “The Movie Critic” actually about? Depends on which iteration. There were a few versions of the story, THR mentions as many as four different ones.
Early on, confirming initial rumors, the film was going to be about late film critic Pauline Kael. Then it morphed into being about a ‘70s porno rag movie critic — possibly Jim Sheldon — but that was sidelined for a film about Brad Pitt’s Cliff Booth, which, according to THR, would have closely resembled Tarantino’s “Once Upon A Time in Hollywood” novelization.
Most intriguing of all, at some point in the creative process, Tarantino had an idea to turn his final film into a goodbye meta-verse with the director’s earlier movies existing in the same era of “The Movie Critic.”
That way, Tarantino could bring back some of the stars of his earlier work to reprise their iconic characters in “movie within a movie” moments, or to play fictional versions of themselves as the actors who played those characters.
This practically confirms Jeff Sneider’s reporting from last year that involved John Travolta and Samuel L Jackson potentially reprising their iconic roles from “Pulp Fiction.” Kurt Russell was also rumored to be part of this “meta-verse.” I would imagine, although not confirmed, that Uma Thurman might have taken part as well — either as “The Bride” or Mia Wallace.
Other actors namechecked as having possibly been eyed by Tarantino for “The Movie Critic” include Olivia Wilde, Margot Robbie, Jamie Foxx and David Krumholtz. As for Paul Walter Hauser, who was mentioned by scooper Daniel Richtman in 2023, THR says that at one point Tarantino was going to shoot a short sequence in February with Hauser, but a source close to the actor says "he was never involved."
The article hints at how Tarantino was basically throwing everything at the wall in the hopes of finding a final film that would determine his legacy. He tried numerous stories, and characters, but couldn’t quite crack the code.
All of this to say, QT’s salad tossing approach of ideas did not mesh the way he envisioned, and it resulted in his scrapping “The Movie Critic” and now working on another mysterious film.