Throughout his long and unique filmmaking career, two-time Academy Award winner Quentin Tarantino has publicly fantasised about his desire to write and direct 10 original movie productions, and then disappear from the scene, never to be spotted in a director's chair again.
And following the success of Tarantino's 9th production, 'Once Upon A Time In Hollywood' back in 2019, large expectations as well as excitement has been growing amongst fans of the legendary filmmaker, knowing that his next movie would inevitably be his last.
Sometime in 2023, it was announced by Tarantino that his tenth and final project would be titled 'The Movie Critic', which was originally intended to focus on a writer working for a fictional porn magazine in the late 1970s. The production was set to star Brad Pitt, uniting the actor/director duo for the third time (previously in 'Inglorious Basterds' and 'Once Upon A Time In Hollywood', for which Pitt won his second Academy Award).
Following a flurry of rewrites, the project then become something resembling a spinoff of his ninth film with some potential meta twists which the filmmaker was reluctant to speak too much on. But on April 17th of 2024, it was announced that the film would be shelved and withheld from beginning production in 2025.
This decision, albeit a difficult one for Tarantino to make, must have arrived following a lengthy thought process from the filmmaker. After all, for this film to be Quentin's final swan song to what has been a near-immaculate filmmaking career, he had better be certain that it is the right project to produce.
Agency partners close to Tarantino have refused to mention why it was specifically that the director decided against producing 'The Movie Critic', but stated that he had grown more excited by other ideas. And following the filmmaker's many attempts at stating to the general public that he makes his movies for himself, if there were better storylines that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand straighter, one would assume he'd be more open to write and direct those stories.
Although the project's specific storyline is unknown and will remain unknown assumably forever, sources familiar with the production released a handful of intriguing ideas that Tarantino was contemplating. One of which was that the Hollywood-set tale could serve as a Tarantino goodbye meta-verse with the directors earlier productions existing in the same era of 'The Movie Critic'.
Regardless, what Tarantino intends to do for his last love letter to Hollywood and the final curtain call to his career remains unknown for time being. One thing we do know is that if you find the concept of 'The Movie Critic' enticing, you have every reason to get excited about whatever it is the legendary filmmaker decides to produce for his 10th and final film, as it's safe to say we are in good hands.
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