Quentin Tarantino is happy to hand over “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” follow-up because ‘me and David Fincher are the 2 best directors’

Key Points

• Quentin Tarantino said that he believes he and David Fincher are “the two best directors.”

• The Pulp Fiction filmmaker called Fincher, who is directing a Once Upon a Time in Hollywood sequel, his “favorite director.”

• Tarantino also explained why he “pulled the plug” on directing the film himself.

There’s only one other man who could follow up a Quentin Tarantino project. Just ask Quentin Tarantino.

The Pulp Fiction filmmaker discussed his decision to hand over the reins of his Once Upon a Time in Hollywood sequel to David Fincher during an interview with The Church of Tarantino podcast.

“I think David Fincher is the best director. I think me and David Fincher are the two best directors,” Tarantino said. “So the idea that David Fincher actually wants to adapt my work to me shows a level of seriousness towards my work that I think needs to be taken into account.”

Tarantino said that he views the film as an opportunity for his writing to shine on its own without his own directorial voice complicating the praise he might receive if he helmed the movie himself. “Because I direct my own stuff, I don’t think I’ve gotten the respect as a writer that I entirely [deserve],” he said. “Because most people just think, ‘Well, he’s writing stuff for himself to do.'”

The filmmaker also said that Fincher is his “favorite director,” which makes him excited to see how the Social Network auteur interprets his work. “I like the idea of David Fincher — I like the idea of any great director, big director adapting my work,” he explained. “Because I’ve been the person adapting most of it. So I’m interested to see what he ends up doing with it.”

The two-time Oscar winner also detailed the complicated journey he took to decide that his next cinematic project would be the OUATIH sequel, which will see Brad Pitt return as stuntman Cliff Booth. Tarantino explained that prior to this project, he wrote an eight-episode limited series titled The Movie Critic, and then turned that project into a feature-length screenplay.

“The thing about The Movie Critic is I really, really like it. But there was a challenge that I gave to myself when I did it,” he said. “Both as a series and as a movie: Can I take the most boring profession in the world and make it an interesting movie?”

Tarantino said that The Movie Critic was “a spiritual sequel” to OUATIH, but featured “no crossover characters,” despite false reports that Cliff Booth would appear in the project. “But it is the same town, except in 1977, as opposed to 1969,” he said. “It was pre-production that made me realize that I was so excited about the writing, but I wasn’t really that excited about dramatizing what I wrote.”

The filmmaker’s lack of enthusiasm for actually making The Movie Critic led him to write another Cliff Booth project instead. “I wrote the Cliff Booth movie, because I was like, ‘Well, if I’m gonna go back to that world, everyone really likes Cliff Booth, and I love Cliff Booth, and he seems like he could be the star of a series of paperbacks, you know?'” he said. “So it was like, another adventure with him would be different, and I think that’s what everybody wants, and the audience want that, and I think Brad wants it, and I wanna work with him in another great role.”

However, once the project reached pre-production, Tarantino once again realized that he didn’t actually want to direct another movie so similar to his previous feature. “I love this script, but I’m still walking down the same ground that I’ve already walked, and there’s no questions,” he explained. “There’s no ceiling for me to hit the head of my talent on. And it just kind of unenthused me as we went forward. And so until I finally just pulled the plug.”

Tarantino said that Pitt, who previously worked with Fincher on films like Se7en and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and won an Oscar for OUATIH, ultimately got the two filmmakers to collaborate. “He put us all together. He was the glue that put us together,” Tarantino explained. “Brad was saying, ‘If you wanna do a Cliff Booth TV series, I’m there with you, man, you know, I’ll do a nine-episode series.'”

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Tarantino has repeatedly reiterated that he wants his 10th movie to be his final directorial film, which meant he wanted to explore uncharted territory that the Cliff Booth project wouldn’t have provided. That being said, the filmmaker doesn’t feel like he’s backed himself into a corner with his commitment to only directing 10 movies.

“It’s a little crazy to like listen to podcasts and hear all these amateur psychiatrists psychoanalyze as if they f—ing know what they’re talking about, about what’s going on with me, about how I’m so scared of my 10th film,” Tarantino said. “How I’m living in terror and fear and I f—ed myself royally, and now I don’t know what to do.”

He continued, “I’m not paralyzed with fear. Trust me, I’m not paralyzed with fear, alright?”

Listen to the full episode of The Church of Tarantino above.

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