Quentin Tarantino Teases Animated ‘Vega Brothers’ Movie

While we wait for his tenth (and supposedly final) film, Tarantino’s self-imposed ten-movie limit has pushed him to search for loopholes—dabbling with the idea of telling stories via stage work, television, and novellas. In the process, we’ve missed out on plenty of potential films, and the whole premise feels doubly misguided because—let’s be honest—he’s already made ten movies, no matter how often he insists that ‘Kill Bill’ counts as just one.

Regardless, Tarantino has his 275-minute “Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair” hitting theaters this weekend, and with it comes a small promo tour for the release. As part of that, he unveiled a short animated film online titled “The Lost Chapter: Yuki’s Revenge,” based on a scene he had written for the original ‘Kill Bill’ movies but never filmed.

While discussing the new animated short and the re-release of his ultimate version of ‘Kill Bill’, Tarantino touched on what he might pursue next—including resurrecting a long-discussed project that has become primo QT lore among diehard fans.

In an interview with EW, Tarantino said that working with motion-capture technology and animation on ‘Yuki’ has opened the door to finally tackling films he never got the chance to make, including the long-lost ‘Vega Brothers.’

I could see some world between this and Japanese anime that I could find some happy medium or, you know, between the things that I couldn’t physically do, like say the Vega Brothers movie, or something like that.

We’ve been hearing whispers of a “Vega Brothers” film since the early ’90s. In “Reservoir Dogs,” Tarantino introduced Mr. Blonde—Vic Vega—played by Michael Madsen. Then, in “Pulp Fiction,” John Travolta brought Vincent Vega to life as one of the film’s central hitmen. Though they never share the screen, Tarantino established the two characters as brothers within his cinematic universe, and he has teased a standalone film about them for decades.

The project never materialized, and Michael Madsen passed away earlier this year. Even so, Tarantino is now open to reimagining the Vega brothers as an animated movie.

The story would have taken place during the period Vincent spent in Amsterdam. In “Pulp Fiction,” he mentions having just returned from living there, suggesting he had been abroad for a couple of years. At some point during that stay—while Vincent was running a club—Vic would have shown up to visit him, and the film would have followed their weekend together.

Tarantino’s career is filled with “what ifs,” unrealized projects that almost happened but didn’t. The most famous may indeed be “The Vega Brothers,” but there’s also “Kill Bill: Volume 3,” “Django/Zorro,” and his much-talked-about R-rated ‘Star Trek’ movie.

After “Jackie Brown,” Tarantino took six years before returning with “Kill Bill,” a long enough gap that any new film would have had to fit within that period. At the time, he was considering either “The Vega Brothers” or an adaptation of The Outfit with Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel. Ultimately, he chose to reinvent himself with “Kill Bill: Volume One,” creating something unlike anything he had made before. “Vega Brothers” was left on the shelf, but the script exists—and perhaps it was always destined to become an animated feature.