1 day Ago By Mark Daniell
Article content You might have thought it was an April Fools’ prank, but the news appears to be true: Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is getting a sequel. According to The Playlist , who first reported the news, and Variety , Brad Pitt is set to reprise his role as stuntman Cliff Booth in a follow-up to the 2019 Oscar-winning hit with David Fincher planning to direct. Fincher and Pitt have worked on several films together, including Se7en , Fight Club and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button .
The news emerged as movie studios touted their upcoming films at CinemaCon in Las Vegas. But in a twist, the sequel will be heading to Netflix, where Fincher has an exclusive first-look deal. Netflix hasn’t commented on the news, but sources say the project could go before cameras this summer for a 2026 streaming release.
Tarantino further expanded on the exploits of Cliff and his confidante Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) in a novelization of the film and Pitt’s character was expected to be a part of the writer-director’s 10th — and supposedly final — film, The Movie Critic , so he has a longstanding fascination with his onscreen creation. After flirting with several different ideas, including directing a Star Trek film he wrote, Tarantino revealed in May 2023 that his final feature was inspired by a journalist who covered film for a porno magazine in the 1970s. “(It) is based on a guy who really lived, but was never really famous, and he used to write movie reviews for a porno rag,” Tarantino told Deadline at the Cannes Film Festival.
“He wrote about mainstream movies and he was the second-string critic. I think he was a very good critic. He was as cynical as hell.
His reviews were a cross between early Howard Stern and what Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro’s character in Taxi Driver) might be if he were a film critic.” He also shared more information on his real-life inspiration for The Movie Critic . “He wrote like he was 55 but he was only in his early to mid-30s.
He died in his late thirties. It wasn’t clear for a while but now I’ve done some more research and I think it was complications due to alcoholism ..
. the porno rag critic was very, very funny. He was very rude, you know.
He cursed. He used racial slurs. But his s*** was really funny.
He was as rude as hell.” The idea hearkens back to one of Tarantino’s earliest jobs, in which he loaded porn magazines into a vending machine. “All the other stuff was too skanky to read, but then there was this porno rag that had a really interesting movie page,” he said.
But Tarantino scrapped the project last year, with sources telling Deadline the filmmaker “ simply had a change of heart.” According to The Playlist , DiCaprio’s return “is very doubtful,” but the actor could make a small cameo as Rick. Meanwhile, Margot Robbie, who played Sharon Tate in the original Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is “available if they need her.
” After announcing he was retiring after he directed his 10th film, Tarantino likely passed on making the sequel because he wants his final film to be an original idea. Tarantino has been talking about retiring for over a decade, worrying aloud that working too long could impact his legacy. “I don’t believe you should stay onstage until people are begging you to get off,” he told Deadline in 2014.
“I like the idea of leaving them wanting a bit more ...
If I get to the 10th, do a good job and don’t screw it up, well that sounds like a good way to end the old career.” Earlier this year, he said that he’s enjoying his role as dad to two young children that he is raising in Israel alongside his wife Daniella Pick. In the midst of writing a play, calling the theatre “the final frontier,” he said he might wait until his son is older before he decides to direct a feature film again.
“I’m in no hurry to actually jump into production,” Tarantino said during a conversation with Elvis Mitchell at the Sundance Film Festival in January (per Variety ). “The idea of jumping on a voyage when they’re too young to understand it is not enticing to me. I kind of want to not do whatever movie I end up doing until my son is at least 6.
That way he’ll know what’s going on, he’ll be there, and it will be a memory for the rest of his life.” [email protected].
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