"Pulled the plug"- Quentin Tarantino explains why he walked away from The Movie Critic film

"Nouvelle Vague" (New Wave) Red Carpet - The 78th Annual Cannes Film Festival - Source: Getty
Quentin Tarantino explains why he walked away from The Movie Critic film - Source: Getty

Director Quentin Tarantino has finally addressed the question of why he gave up The Movie Critic, which was due to be his tenth and last directorial venture. Although he completed the script and staged the project to pre-production, the director himself acknowledged his excitement wearing off as work on the project proceeded.

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In an episode of The Church of Tarantino podcast on August 14, 2025, Tarantino explained the decision as follows:

“No one’s waiting for this thing per se. I mean, I can do it whenever I want. I mean, it’s already written. So OK, let me just not start it right now. Let me try writing it as a movie and let me see if it’s better that way. And I was like, ‘Oh, OK, no, I think this is going to be the movie.’ And then it wasn’t. I pulled the plug on it. And the reason I pulled the plug, it’s a little crazy.”
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By admitting that, Quentin Tarantino puts the emphasis that his choice was not an act of fear of failure, but a necessity of artistic discovery. To him, a final film has to be something unexpected and difficult, an uncharted adventure, not a road he has already experienced.


Why Quentin Tarantino walked away from The Movie Critic

US Premiere of "Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 2" - Source: Getty
US Premiere of "Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 2" - Source: Getty

In April of last year, it was revealed that Quentin Tarantino had seemingly quietly dropped The Movie Critic, although he had been developing it over time.

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The movie was far enough along that California had approved a $20 million tax credit, and filming was planned for late 2024 and early 2025.

In a recent podcast with The Church of Tarantino, the director revealed that the project was first written as an eight-episode TV series. But after finishing it, Tarantino began to question if he really wanted to move forward with it as a film.

According to him:

“I think when I was done [writing the show], and I knew I had done it, and now I was faced with the hard work in front of me of setting it up and doing it, I didn’t really want to do it that much. That’s too strong a word to say. But it was more like, if I like this so much, could it be a movie? Is it really a movie? And that was just enough of a question that it made me want to investigate.”
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This prompted him to rewrite the material into a feature-length screenplay, and initially, he enjoyed it. But once the pre-production was underway, his doubts resurfaced. He realised that the film’s setting, Los Angeles in 1977, felt too similar to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Although the characters and plot were new, the creative base was too close. To this, there were even online rumors that Brad Pitt’s Cliff Booth, the stuntman in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, would appear in the film. Quentin Tarantino strongly dispelled those allegations:

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“That [Cliff Booth being in the film] was never the case, ever ever ever. But it is the same town except in 1977 as opposed to 1969. And, frankly, to tell you the truth, it was pre-production that made me realise that I was so excited about the writing, but I wasn’t really that excited about dramatising what I wrote.”
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Quentin Tarantino elaborated further, admitting that the script offered little challenge. Tarantino has always seen filmmaking as an exploration of uncharted cinematic territory. The Movie Critic, on the contrary, felt safe.

“It was like, well, yeah, I love this script, but I’m still walking down the same ground that I’ve already walked, and there are no questions. I mean, there are a few things, as far as like certain sequences and everything.”
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He added:

“But as far as, like, you know, how is this ship going to sail, which is always a question in my mind. There was no question that the ship would arrive at port. There’s no question that we won’t sink. There’s no ceiling for me to hit the head of my talent on.”
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Quentin Tarantino has always viewed his final film as a significant final word, something that puts him into “uncharted territory.” That spark was lacking in the film, which is why he decided to back out instead of bringing a film that did not meet the artistic level he had expected of himself.


What the Movie Critic could have been

Though Quentin Tarantino eventually left The Movie Critic, the project was shaping up to be a fascinating addition to his filmography. The plot was set in the Californian setting of 1977 and followed a real-life critic who wrote for an adult magazine, known for his raw and unfiltered style.

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According to Tarantino, the character was a cross between early Howard Stern and Travis Bickle, whose cynical voice captured the underground culture. To avoid using familiar collaborators, Tarantino had intended to cast a young American star who had never worked with him before to fill the role.

As the idea had overtones of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood because of a late-1970s backdrop, it offered a more direct and edgy take on cinema, seen through the eyes of an outsider.

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With Quentin Tarantino stepping away, there would be no further development of The Movie Critic.

Edited by Divya Singh
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