If Quentin Tarantino is to be believed, Quentin Tarantino will only be making two more movies. The filmmaker has long held that he wants to retire around the age of 60, or after he’s made 10 films, which means he has two more movies left in him after The Hateful Eight. Why does Tarantino want to retire? Well he’s offered a number of reasons, from his belief that most filmmakers lose their touch as they get older, to his desire to leave audiences wanting more. He’s going for a perfect track record, one in which folks could pick any movie from his entire filmography and not run the risk of choosing a stinker, and so I understand the hesitation to tempt fate. Regardless, if Tarantino does retire after making only two more films, that will be a major blow to the filmmaking and filmgoing community.
But looking at this as the glass half full, Tarantino still has two more movies left, so what genres or projects will he be tackling? As he always does when making the press rounds for a new movie, Tarantino is being pretty open about the ideas floating around for future projects while on the Hateful Eight press tour. History tells us that of the projects Tarantino expounds upon in the public, very few of them actually become his next or future movies. But still, as the clock begins winding down, it’s possible one of these ideas could get fleshed out into one of the director’s last two films.
So what’s on the docket? Well after a recent press conference for The Hateful Eight, the folks at The Playlist asked the director for updates on a few projects he’s talked about before. The one that he seems the most enthused about is an adaptation of the Elmore Leonard novel Forty Lashes Less One:
“The third Western could actually be a TV thing. I’ve owned the rights for a while — I get them and I lose them and then I get them — this piece which I think really demands that I make it which is Elmore Leonard book called Forty Lashes Less One. I actually think if you’re going to call yourself a Western director today you need to do at least three [films]. And I would really like to do [the Leonard book] as a mini-series, like an hour an episode, four or five hours, I’d write and direct it all. And it’s right along the lines of Django Unchained and Hateful Eight as it deals with race and it all takes place in a territorial prison and it’s a really good book and I’ve always wanted to tell that story, so we’ll see. I’m hoping I’ll do that eventually.”
Now if Tarantino does this for television it’s unclear if he’d count that as one of his final two films, but he’s talked about Forty Lashes Less One before and he has experience adapting Leonard with Jackie Brown, so it’s entirely possible that this one becomes a reality.
The filmmaker was also asked about Killer Crow, a project that was borne out of the excised portions of his massive initial Inglourious Basterds screenplay. He previously said Killer Crow didn’t seem likely to happen, but now he tells The Playlist it’s still on the table as a possibility. What’s the story? Well it would follow a separate platoon operating parallel to the Basterds:
“The thing is, the huge stuff that I took out could make its own movie and it followed a platoon of black troops that were court-martialed and they escape. They were in France, they were going to be hung and in London and their whole thing was to get to Switzerland. And they ended up getting into an adventure and they meet the Basterds, so I ended up taking all that out. So I could still do that. That’s the closest thing…I’m not done with it. It’s the closest thing that I have which is a big piece of material that hasn’t been done before. And I would still need to end it and relook at the whole thing again, but that could happen.”
As for something Tarantino won’t be making, he doubts he’ll ever fully delve into the horror genre:
“I don’t know, I did do my little deconstruction on the slasher movie with Death Proof but I don’t think I have the right kind of temperament to do something like say The Exorcist that is all about one tone that is dread that carries through. I like breaking up [tones] a little bit. If I were really going to do a horror film it would something like [shifting tones], but I honestly don’t think I have the right temperament. I like going up and down and up and down and I think that would take away from the horror.”
The filmmaker did, however, reiterate his desire to make a period gangster film. So which of these ideas is next? Again, prior experience tells us it’ll be none of them, but if Tarantino does plan on packing things up in six years or so, he may feel the need to finally pull the trigger on some of the ideas that have been percolating for a while now. Although I remain dubious about Kill Bill Vol. 3 ever happening.
What do you think, folks? Of these possibilities, which would you most like to see Tarantino fully realize? Sound off in the comments below.
