When news broke that David Fincher and Brad Pitt would make a sequel to Quentin Tarantino's acclaimed "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" for Netflix, many didn't believe it to be true. Hell, there are still people out there who don’t believe it’ll happen.
Steven Soderbergh, one of Fincher’s closest friends, tells Business Insider that the ‘Hollywood’ sequel landing into Fincher’s hands was all Pitt’s idea, but he’s rather surprised Tarantino has given his blessing for it to happen.
I think [Fincher and Pitt] are always on the lookout for something to do together, and so this was, it sounds like, an unusual set of circumstances where Quentin decided he didn't want to do it and Brad asked him, "Can I show it to David?" and he said sure, and David read it and said let's do it. That seems to be what happened. That's not surprising at all. What's surprising is Quentin's agreeability.
It’s widely believed that Tarantino—who has publicly said his next film will be his last—was hesitant to conclude his directing career with a sequel. That’s potentially where his “agreeability” for Fincher to direct came from. Tarantino probably saw this opportunity as a loophole for his script to get shot, but without it counting as his tenth and final film.
This wouldn’t be the first time another filmmaker directed one of Tarantino’s scripts; it has happened three times, so far, on Tony Scott’s “True Romance,” Oliver Stone’s “Natural Born Killers,” and Robert Rodriguez’s “From Dusk Til Dawn.”
Given that he's friends with Fincher, did Soderbergh know about him taking on the sequel before the news broke?
"I was aware, but I was also very cognizant that this was a newsworthy piece of information," Soderbergh said. "Actually, I was surprised it took that long for the story to come out. But it's happening, and it's happening soon."