Quentin Tarantino's The Movie Critic Is Scrapped, Director's Final Movie Is Being Entirely Retooled

Screen Rant

By Brennan Klein

Published Apr 17, 2024

Tarantino drops The Movie Critic, which is meant to be the acclaimed director's final movie, just months before the project is set to shoot.

Summary

Quentin Tarantino's planned final movie, The Movie Critic, has been cancelled.
The movie was intended to be set in the 1970s and follow a cynical movie critic.
Tarantino's tenth movie, which will still be his last, will now be a different project.

The Movie Critic, the upcoming movie from acclaimed director Quentin Tarantino, has been scrapped. While details were kept under wraps about the story, it was set to be the director's last, as he has frequently stated that he intends to only make 10 movies in his career. It was said to be set in the 1970s, following a cynical movie critic inspired by a real-life critic that Tarantino read in his youth, and had recently been retooled to include Brad Pitt's character Cliff Booth from 2019's Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood.

Per The Hollywood Reporter, Tarantino's The Movie Critic has been dropped entirely as the director scraps plans for his final movie, becoming one of the many aborted projects that have come close to fruition throughout his filmography. While his tenth movie is still intended to be his last, it will now be an entirely different project. At the time of writing, it is currently unknown if any plans for the replacement movie are in early development.

What Will Quentin Tarantino's Final Movie Actually Be?

The Movie Critic's Cancellation Opens Up Many Options

Quentin Tarantino as Richie dead on the floor in From Dusk Till Dawn

If anything, the cancellation of The Movie Critic seems to prove that Quentin Tarantino's 10-movie rule is still in effect. It's possible that the pressure of coming up with the definitive final statement for his feature directorial career is leading the writer-director to be particularly picky about the project. However, the movie being taken off the table so close to its planned production reopens the question as to what the director's final movie is actually going to be.

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How Many Films Quentin Tarantino Has Made (& Why He Counts It Wrong)

Just how many movies has Quentin Tarantino actually made? Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is supposed to be his ninth film, but that doesn't add up.

It's possible that the director's actual final movie could be a revival of one of the many scrapped projects that litter his career. These include a 1930s gangster movie, a movie set in medieval times, remakes of Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, Less Than Zero, and The Psychic, and adaptations of Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me and Elmore Leonard's Forty Lashes Less One. One scrapped title that seems particularly unlikely, though, is Tarantino's Star Trek movie, as the sci-fi franchise has had its own planned sequel to Star Trek Beyond in development hell for nearly a decade.

Other franchises that Tarantino circled included The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Luke Cage, Green Lantern, Iron Man, and James Bond.

Of those titles, the original movies seem much more likely than the franchise movies, as the director has tended to lean toward movie pastiche without incorporating any other specific IP into his directorial projects. However, it also remains to be seen why he decided to leave The Movie Critic behind. The idea that he is moving in an entirely new direction could mean that he is merely avoiding making a second California-set period movie in a row, or it could mean that he is rethinking his entire approach to developing an idea for a project.

Source: THR