Quentin Tarantino's unrealized projects

The following is a list of unproduced Quentin Tarantino projects in roughly chronological order. During his long career, American film director Quentin Tarantino has worked on a number of projects which never progressed beyond the pre-production stage under his direction. Some of these projects are officially cancelled and scrapped or fell in development hell.

1980s

My Best Friend's Birthday
Long before his directorial debut with Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino met with Craig Hamann and was introduced to his 30-40 page script, My Best Friend's Birthday. Tarantino helped expand the script up to 80 pages and agreed to direct the film. On a $5,000 budget and a 16 mm camera, the film was shot in the span of four years. The completed run time came out to 70 minutes but due to a lab fire during editing, the film was nearly destroyed. The remaining 36 minutes was saved, roughly edited together, and displayed at several film festivals.

Untitled '70s Exploitation script
After Tarantino met Lawrence Bender at a Hollywood party, Bender encouraged him to write a screenplay. His first attempted script, which he described as a "straight 70s exploitation action movie" was never published and was abandoned soon after.

1990s

Green Lantern film
In the 1990s, Tarantino was offered a chance to write and direct a film adaptation of Green Lantern. He declined the offer, despite being a huge comic book fan.

Iron Man film
Tarantino was linked at one point to an Iron Man film for New Line Cinema. Nothing came out of this.

Luke Cage film
After the release of Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino contemplated developing a film based on Luke Cage. Being a huge fan of the character, Tarantino held a meeting with producer Ed Pressman, who owned the film rights to Luke Cage, and proposed a film based on the character and suggested casting Laurence Fishburne as Cage. Despite liking the idea, Tarantino shifted his interest for Pulp Fiction.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Tarantino was briefly attached to a film adaptation of the 1960s TV series The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. He opted to do Jackie Brown instead. Eventually, a film adaptation of the show was released in 2015 to lukewarm critical and box-office results.

Silver Surfer film
Fresh off of the success of Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino went to Constantin Films with a completed script for a proposed Silver Surfer film. Ultimately, Constantin Films passed on his script.

Tarantino's Men in Black
Tarantino was at one point offered to direct a film adaptation of the comic book The Men in Black. He turned the project down in favor of Pulp Fiction and Barry Sonnenfeld was chosen to direct the film in 1997 to critical and box office success.

Tarantino's Natural Born Killers
Tarantino sold his Natural Born Killers script to producers Jane Hamsher and Don Murphy for $10,000 after his previous attempt to direct the film himself on a half a million dollar budget. Hamsher and Murphy sold his script to Warner Bros. The script caught the attention of director Oliver Stone, who drastically reworked the script with David Veloz and associate producer Richard Rutowski, while retaining Tarantino's dialogue. Due to the heavy rewrites from Stone, Veloz, and Rutowski, Writer's Guild of America ruled out for Tarantino to receive story credit.

Tarantino gave a negative response to the film. Despite wishing the best for Stone during the film's production,</blockquote> he responded to the film saying, "I hated that fucking movie. If you like my stuff, don't watch that movie."

Tarantino's Speed
Tarantino was also offered to direct the film Speed. He turned the offer down in favor of Pulp Fiction.

2000s

Casino Royale
In the mid 2000s, Tarantino has expressed interest in directing Casino Royale, the 2006 film adaptation of Ian Fleming's debut novel and the debut of James Bond. Unfortunately, Eon Productions had no interest in hiring Tarantino. He claims to have worked behind the scenes with the Fleming family, and believed this was the reason why filmmakers finally went ahead with Casino Royale. Tarantino also said he would have set it in the 1960s and would have only made it with Pierce Brosnan returning as Bond. By February 2005, Martin Campbell was announced as the film's director, and the film was released on November 14, 2006 to critical and box-office success.

Untitled Disaster Project/Airport 2005
Tarantino wanted to take his hand at another popular '70s genre film, where Jackie Brown was with blaxploitation and Kill Bill was with kung-fu films, this time with a disaster film. Taking inspiration from films like The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, and Airport, Tarantino wanted to get as many of his reoccurring actors as possible and jokingly dubbed this Airport 2005. He remarked his casting choice as so: "[John] Travolta could be the pilot, Pam Grier the stewardess, Robert Forster, Michael Madsen, Tim Roth, Harvey Keitel, Bridget Fonda.” Since then, no other updates have emerged and Forster has sinced died on October 11, 2019.

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
Tarantino expressed in January 2008 his interest in a raunchy remake of the 1966 sexploitation film Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!. The film has quite an influence on Tarantino; even going as far as to referencing the movie and giving co-writer/director of Faster, Pussycat!, Russ Meyer, thanks in his 2007 film Death Proof. His top casting choices would have been Kim Kardashian, Eva Mendes, and Britney Spears. By July of that same year, Tarantino was considering casting porn star Tera Patrick as Varla. When the rumor of Britney Spears playing Varla was brought to his attention, a source close to Tarantino replied that, "There is no truth to this." Actress Tura Satana clarified in an interview that she is working closely with Tarantino in rewriting the script. Since then, no other updates have emerged from his remake.

Grindhouse 2
Both Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez have expressed interest in making a sequel to their 2007 double-feature film Grindhouse. Tarantino said that he wants to shoot an "old-school Kung Fu movie in Mandarin with subtitles in some countries, and release a shorter, dubbed cut in others" for his segment. It has also been reported by Rotten Tomatoes that Edgar Wright may expand Don't into a feature film. According to Eli Roth, he and Wright have discussed the possibility of pairing Don't with Thanksgiving for a Grindhouse sequel. Roth is quoted as saying "We're talking to Dimension about it. I think they're still trying to figure out Grindhouse 1 before we think about Grindhouse 2, but I've already been working on the outline for it and I would do it in a heartbeat."

Hostel: Part III
In the 2000s, Tarantino acted as an executive producer for Eli Roth's films Hostel and Hostel: Part II. In July 2009, Roth confirmed that he would not be directing Hostel: Part III and Tarantino also did not return as an executive producer.

Kill Bill Vol. 3
In April 2004, Tarantino told Entertainment Weekly that he was planning a sequel:

At the 2006 San Diego Comic-Con International, Tarantino stated that, after the completion of Grindhouse, he wanted to make two anime Kill Bill films: an origin story about Bill and his mentors, and another origin starring the Bride.

Details emerged around 2007 about two possible sequels, Kill Bill: Volume 3 and Volume 4. According to the article, "the third film involves the revenge of two killers whose arms and eye were hacked by Uma Thurman in the first stories." The article adds that the "fourth installment of the popular kung fu action films concerns a cycle of reprisals and daughters who avenge their mother's deaths".

At the 2009 Morelia International Film Festival, Tarantino stated that he intended to make a third Kill Bill film. The same month, he stated that Kill Bill 3 would be his ninth film, and would be released in 2014. He stated that he wanted 10 years to pass after the Bride's last conflict, to give her and her daughter a period of peace.

In December 2012, Tarantino stated: "I don't know if there's ever going to be a Kill Bill Vol. 3. We'll see, probably not though." In January 2016, it was reported that Tarantino has spoken with Thurman on a potential return for a sequel, but noted that Tarantino remains non-committal on actually making a sequel.

Despite this; on December 2019, Tarantino officially confirmed Kill Bill 3 is "is definitely in the cards" while Uma Thurman confirmed that "Tarantino wrote something". On July 22, 2019, Tarantino confirmed he and Thurman were meeting each other about Kill Bill 3.

Untitled Kung-fu Mandarin Project
Following the success of his Kill Bill films, Tarantino began developing a kung-fu followup film that would be entirely in Mandarin. It was to be made before Inglourious Basterds. The inspiration to do another martial arts film came from Tarantino seeing Zhang Yimou's House of Flying Daggers at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. It wasn't known if Tarantino would hire fluent Mandarin people or celebrities that would have to learn Mandarin. The plan on releasing was to have two theatrical cuts, one with subtitles and the other with an out-of-sync English language dubbing, similar to old-school re dubs. Since then, no updates have emerged from the ambitious project.

The Vega Brothers / Double V Vega
When developing Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino began to consider making The Vega Brothers. The film would've starred Michael Madsen as Vic Vega (Mr. Blonde) from Reservoir Dogs and John Travolta as Vincent Vega from Pulp Fiction. In 2007, due to the actors' ages and because of their character's death in their respected films, Tarantino claimed that the film, retitled Double V Vega, was "kinda unlikely now."

Westworld
Following an unexpected box-office flop from his film Death Proof, he was offered to work on tentpole, bigger budgeted films. One such project was a remake of the film Westworld, based on the Michael Crichton novel of the same name. Tarantino rejected the offer and went to work on other films.

2010s

Django/Zorro
In 2015, a Django Unchained sequel crossover comic entitled Django/Zorro was released by Dynamite Entertainment. In June 2019, Tarantino had picked Jerrod Carmichael to co-write a film adaptation based on the crossover comic book series. In December 2019, it was reported that Tarantino was looking to make a smaller, stand-alone film, leaving development on Django/Zorro in doubt.

From Dusk Till Dawn 4
In December 2010, the production of a fourth From Dusk till Dawn film was in the planning stages, but further work on this possibility has not been revealed. In November 2013, it was reported that From Dusk till Dawn: The Series had begun production, without any further mention of the film.

Killer Crow
In a late 2012 interview with the online magazine The Root, Tarantino described his next film as being the final entry in a "Django-Inglourious Basterds" trilogy called Killer Crow. The film will depict a group of World War II-era black troops who have "been fucked over by the American military and kind of go apeshit. They basically – the way Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) and the Basterds are having an 'Apache resistance' – [the] black troops go on an Apache warpath and kill a bunch of white soldiers and white officers on a military base and are just making a warpath to Switzerland." Since then, no updates have emerged.

Less Than Zero remake
In May 2010, Bret Easton Ellis, author of the 1985 novel Less Than Zero, confirmed in an interview that Tarantino had been "trying to get Fox to let him remake the 1987 film". In 2012, when asked whether Less Than Zero would be remade, Ellis once again confirmed that Tarantino "has shown interest" in adapting the story. At the San Diego Comic-Con in 2014, Tarantino revealed he is contemplating a possible science-fiction film.

Untitled Medieval Project
In January 2010, Tarantino announced that his next film, after Inglourious Basterds, will be a medieval film. He offered a role to Helen Mirren as a foul-mouthed monarch. The film was to retain Tarantino's signature traits, bloody violence and foul language, and was to be set in England's Middle Ages. Mirren had previously played a queen in 2006's The Queen as Queen Elizabeth II and was willing to play a monarch yet again. Although she was interested in the role, no other updates have emerged from this project, and his follow-up film to Inglourious was Django Unchained.

Star Trek
It was announced in December 2017 that Tarantino had pitched an idea to Paramount Pictures for a new Star Trek film. A writers room, consisting of Mark L. Smith, Lindsey Beer, Megan Amram and Drew Pearce, was assembled to flesh out the concept. The plan would be for Tarantino to direct the film, with J.J. Abrams, who had previously directed and produced earlier Star Trek reboot projects,  onboard to produce. Smith later became the frontrunner to write the screenplay later that month.

In May 2019, Tarantino confirmed that his Trek film was still in development, saying "It's a very big possibility. I haven't been dealing with those guys for a while cause I've been making my movie. But we've talked about a story and a script. The script has been written and when I emerge my head like Punxsutawney Phil, post-Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, we'll pick up talking about it again." Tarantino discussed the project in June 2019, stating that Smith had turned in his script, and Tarantino would soon be adding in his notes. He asserted his intention for the film to be rated R.

In December 2019, it was reported that Tarantino had left the project, looking to make a smaller budget film. In January 2020, Tarantino stated the film "might" be made, but he would not direct it.

See also
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino filmography
List of awards and nominations received by Quentin Tarantino

References

External links
 The Lost, Unmade, and Possible Future Films of Quentin Tarantino by IndieWire

unrealized projects
Tarantino, Quentin
Unrealized
Tarantino, Quentin