Quentin Tarantino Planning To Remake One Of His Own Movies
Quentin Tarantino answered questions about his final movie in a recent interview. Here's what he said.
This article is more than 2 years old
It’s hard to believe that someone as passionate about filmmaking as Quentin Tarantino could ever retire. Because of this, anytime he’s asked about it during interviews, it’s with disbelief. Recently, the famous director went on Real Time with Bill Maher, who tried to talk him out of it, but also tried to find out what the tenth and final movie Tarantino is going to make will be about. One idea that has seriously been kicked around? A remake of Reservoir Dogs, the 1992 film that got Tarantino started as a director.
This is the movie where a jewel heist goes wrong. There’s a large group of criminals who don’t know each other’s real names, and who now suspect that one of them may be a snitch. But which one? And what do they do now? Well, because it’s a Quentin Tarantino movie, things get fairly violent, naturally. The idea of remaking his first film is an interesting one. On the topic of actually doing it, he said, “That’s kind of a capture time in the moment kind of thing, but I actually considered doing a remake of Reservoir Dogs as my last movie. I won’t do it, internet! But I considered it.”
It’s interesting that he has been considering making Reservoir Dogs when he was actually on Bill Maher to promote his new book, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Yes, he turned his most recent film into a novel. Perhaps remaking his own work, even in different media, may be a new thing we see Quentin Tarantino do as he moves forward into promised retirement. The novelization of the Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio movie publishes on June 29, 2021.
I mean, does anyone need to see the ear scene remade? Realistically, how would he ever top how horrifying that was? In a remake, would Quentin Tarantino then have to choose another song? Does anyone who has seen Reservoir Dogs ever listen to Stuck in the Middle With You and not think of Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen) dancing with the ear? (It ruined the song for Stephen Colbert.) The vulnerability of the moment where the young man with his ear cut off was yelling about it after Mr. Blonde left, and then the undercover police officer lying on the ground says, “I’m dying here,” followed by a pregnant and terrible pause.
Recreating scenes like that may be enough to give any creator stress, especially when so much of those moments aren’t in the director’s hands but the parts of everyone else involved in making the film. Trying to do himself better might not be possible, and it may have been an overly complicated end to his career. There’s a poetic completeness to redoing that film, a bookend to the career he’s had and a fascinating look at how a director grows through all of that experience, but it seems like a difficult way for Quentin Tarantino to sleep at night for the rest of his life, comfortable that he’d ended on a high note.
So far, the director has talked about that R-rated Star Trek script that he wanted to do with Chris Pine, Kill Bill Vol: 3, and that he’d considered the idea of remaking Reservoir Dogs. None of these are new and original ideas from the director. This may only mean that at this point, these are the ideas he’s willing to share. It may also mean he’s not there yet. But it could mean that a remake, sequel, or part of a franchise is his intention. Perhaps when we finally get that tenth and final Quentin Tarantino film, we can now expect that it will include characters we’ve already seen before.
