While we wait for his tenth (and supposedly final) film, Quentin 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 release.
Here’s an amusing post from DiscussingFilm’s Andrew Salazar concerning some intel he’d heard about David Fincher’s “The Adventures of Cliff Booth,” written by Tarantino:
QT was on set for most, if not all, of shooting for the Cliff Booth movie. His high chair was next to Fincher’s, which makes the 10 movie rule feel a bit more silly
At first glance, this seems to suggest Tarantino found a loophole in his much‑publicized “10 movie rule,” but come on, he obviously didn’t call the shots on ‘Cliff Booth,’ and I highly doubt Fincher let him take over directing. Did he have input? I’m sure. But he didn’t ghost-direct the damn thing.
That said, Tarantino did write the screenplay and is serving as a producer, so it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for him to offer guidance where needed. Was he too pushy—enough to annoy the hell out of Finch? I wouldn’t put it past him.
Previously, Tarantino himself had addressed why he chose not to direct this particular story:
I love this script, but I’m still walking down the same ground I’ve already walked. It just kind of unenthused me… This last movie, I’ve got to not know what I’m doing again.
Tarantino has long maintained that his career would end after ten films. For a time, it looked like “The Movie Critic” would be the one to close out his filmography, a “spiritual sequel” of sorts to “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.” Fans were intrigued, Hollywood press ran with the idea, and then—just like that—Tarantino scrapped it. The reasons remained murky, but the most realistic theory was that Tarantino didn’t want to end his career with that film.
Quentin, nobody cares if you make more than 10 movies. In fact, we’re rooting for it. Break the rules. Make eleven. Twelve. Go nuts.