He turned his self-appointed retirement age on March 27.
I dont f*cking believe it.
Watch on Deadline
He smiles: Thats OK.
Quentin Tarantino on the Carlton Hotel terrace in Cannes.Baz Bamigboye/Deadline
I continue: Forgive me, the Nigerian side of me does not believe it, OK?
The English side of me might believe it.
I dont know if the Nigerian side of me believes it for one minute.
Quentin Tarantino on the Carlton Hotel terrace inCannes(Baz Bamigboye/Deadline)
Looking askance at my forthrightness, Tarantino laughs: Well said.
And its your last film?
Motion picture, yes, he says.
Theres wriggle room here.
No, I could do a TV show.
I didnt say Im going to go into the night darkly, all right?
I could do a TV show.
I could do a short film.
I could do a play.
All kinds of things I could do, but Ill probably just be more of a writer.
So youre not giving up the gig?
Well, I am ending the filmography.
After I pushed for more, he says: Its just time.
Its just time to go out.
I like the idea of going out on top.
And I dont like working to diminishing returns.
Is it just something that they show on Apple?
That would be diminishing returns.
From the get-go, he has insisted that movies are for cinematic release.
Well, Ive always thought that.
And they eventually get to television.
I saw a lot of them that way.
Its not about feeding their streaming data pipe.
They are committed to theatrical experience.
They judge success by asses on seats.
No one even knows its there.
I dont know what any of those movies are.
Ive never seen them.
I nod my head in the affirmative because I dont want him to lose his thought on this.
Well, good for him that hes making so much money.
But those movies dont exist in the zeitgeist.
Its almost like they dont even exist.
Has the streaming business damaged cinema irrefutably?
Well, I dont think Im that negative about it.
I think it had been going that way and the pandemic hurried everything along, he says.
Exactly, he says.
But Ive got no ax to grind against television, per se, all right?
And its just a soap opera.
Its very engaging while youre watching it.
He adds: Yet, when Im watching it, its compelling.
I probably wrote some of those stories, but it was a long time ago.
I ask Tarantino if he ever sat down with Barbara Broccoli.
No, we never actually had a sit-down.
What happened was I tried to do something, and it didnt work out.
He told me that there was a long period of time where Eon didnt own the rights toCasino Royale.
Because Howard Hawks partner, Harry Saltzman, owned it, Tarantino says.
And at one point, Howard Hawks was going to direct it with Cary Grant playing James Bond.
That wouldve been a thing.
But that didnt happen.
We would have cast an actor and be one and done.
So I thought we could do this.
Were going to just give you a bunch of money.
This is for every single thing hes ever written.
If anybody wants to make a movie out of it, they got to come to us.
He waves his arms for emphasis: Like every short story, every travel book.
If I want to make a movie ofThrilling Cities, I need to go to the Broccolis.
Thats for everything he wrote.
To stop somebody from being a wise guy and trying to do what I did.
Did he ever seek a meeting with Broccoli at Eon?
No, but I had people who knew them and everything.
We dont want him to do it.
Doesnt matter that it will still do good.
It could f*ck up our billion-dollar thing.
With Daniel Craig gone, whats his sense of the Bond franchise?
What are they going to do?
I mean, whats your sense of Bond now?
Because they had a good run, didnt they?
Ill tell you, I actually have a thought process about this.
And for the most part, a lot of them, they never did the book.
They never did the stories.
Tom Mankiewicz just goes his own way.
He did the writing for a lot of them.
And those would all be brand new.
I note that the Fleming novels are full-on tough.
Theyre very, very tough, he agrees.
Would he ever consider pushing back retirement to make one?
No, becauseThe Movie Criticis my last motion picture, OK?!
OK, both sides of my personality believe you.
