Tarantino scraps The Movie Critic; Cliff Booth sequel with Fincher

Quentin Tarantino has scrapped The Movie Critic, his planned 10th and final film, signaling a pivotal shift in how he intends to conclude a career he has long described as nearing its end. The director explained that, after extensive preproduction, the project felt less compelling than the rest of his work and would have been too reminiscent of his most recent film. Instead, he is returning to The Adventures of Cliff Booth, the Netflix sequel to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, with Brad Pitt set to reprise his role and David Fincher directing, while Tarantino remains the writer. Production for the Cliff Booth project is already underway, and Tarantino has stressed that he will still write and consult as needed.

The decision to shelve The Movie Critic grew out of Tarantino’s self-imposed constraint to finish with 10 films. He has long argued that a director’s last movie can unintentionally tarnish a legacy, and this project’s fate underscores how the burden of that rule can shape creative choices. “There was nothing to figure out. I already kind of knew, more or less, how to turn L.A. into an older time. It was too much like the last one,” Tarantino said, explaining why the...