Nearly three years after the release of the Oscar-winning Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino is prepping his 10th and perhaps final film, said to be called The Movie Critic.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, The Movie Critic is described as being set in the 1970s with a woman lead, though no other plot details have been revealed. The movie could potentially be about, or inspired by, Pauline Kael, the esteemed film critic who wrote for The New Yorker for over two decades — Kael also briefly worked as a consultant for Paramount in the 1970s.
Sources say that Tarantino has written the script for The Movie Critic and is preparing to direct it this fall. The project doesn’t yet have a studio home, but could go out to buyers as early as this week.
Tarantino has long said he would retire from directing rather than keep making movies forever. At one point, he claimed he would either retire after making 10 movies or at age 60, whatever came first; The Movie Critic would be his 10th feature (if you count Kill Bill and its sequel as one film), and the director turns 60 later this month. He explained his desire to retire in a 2012 interview with Playboy, noting that he didn’t want to grow out of touch as he aged:
“I want to stop at a certain point. Directors don’t get better as they get older. Usually the worst films in their filmography are those last four at the end. I am all about my filmography, and one bad film fucks up three good ones. I don’t want that bad, out-of-touch comedy in my filmography, the movie that makes people think, ‘Oh man, he still thinks it’s 20 years ago.’ When directors get out-of-date, it’s not pretty.”
The artist behind Pulp Fiction, Django Unchained, and, most recently, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Tarantino is one of the most celebrated directors in film history. Fortunately for fans, if he does retire from the film world, he won’t go away completely: Last year, the artist released the book Cinema Speculation, and also revealed that he planned to switch gears and helm a television show.
Ahead of his final bow, revisit our ranking of Tarantino’s films.
