Quentin Tarantino is making the press rounds to promote his new novelization of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood that expands upon the Oscar-winning pic and stopped by the stages of Real Time With Bill Maher last night. The director briefly reiterated his plan to retire after completing his tenth and final feature film, while also teasing something interesting at the same time.
Tarantino revealing that, at one time, he considered remaking Reservoir Dogs as his tenth and final movie.
“I’ve actually considered about doing a remake of Reservoir Dogs as my last movie. I won’t do it, internet, alright, but I considered it,” Tarantino said when asked if Reservoir Dogs would be different if he had made the film with his current level of experience as a filmmaker.
RESERVOIR DOGS – Six criminals with pseudonyms, and each strangers to one another, are hired to carry out a robbery. The heist is ambushed by police and the gang are forced to shoot their way out. At their warehouse rendezvous, the survivors, realizing that they were set up, try to find the traitor in their midst.
It’s interesting because he’s been talking up a Vega Brothers movies for decades, but since Michael Madsen’s Vic Vega and John Travolta’s Vincent Vega were killed in their respective movies it would make things unbelievable as the actors are much much older at this point. A remake could have potentially scratched that itch.
He’s mentioned in the past his desire to return the world of gangsters and thieves, with a Pretty Boy Floyd-type film, but never executed on that idea. His favorite director Sergio Leone tackled the genre with Once Upon A Time In America starring Robert De Niro, the title of Tarantino’s last film was an obvious nod to both Leone’s western Once Upon A Time In The West and the aforementioned gangster flick.
Tarantino has previously said he’s written but a bunch of episodes of his Bounty Law spinoff series, and has suggested he’ll tackle that before attempting his final movie. Although, retirement to Quentin Tarantino is likely going to look a little different than what most would imagine, as he plans to write books and potentially write/produce/direct television projects.
Reservoir Dogs was my first introduction to Quentin Tarantino slightly before Pulp Fiction landed in rental stores and cable. I have a huge attachment to Tarantino’s first directorial debut but can also see how it could be improved or expanded with a reboot, given it’s scope could have been more on the level of a Martin Scorsese gangster epic if it had a larger budget to work with. However, the original is still extremely charming and even more impressive when you learn it was only made for $1.2 million when it feels like it cost significantly more.
He wouldn’t be the first filmmaker to attempt to revisit or reboot their own material, director Michael Mann famously turned his television pilot L.A. Takedown into the fantastic Al Pacino and Robert De Niro flick Heat. The latter is obviously the superior of the two, becoming one of the best crime films ever made and Heat is easily one of the films that Mann is best known for.
It is worth noting that he’s talked about these projects and nothing really becomes of them. Something like Kill Bill 3 has been another thing he’s talked-up for ages and was said to be speaking with Uma Thurman about it not too long ago. I still have major doubts it’ll ever get made outside of a book or series.
Tarantino had been working with screenwriter Mark L. Smith (The Revenant) on a Star Trek film at Paramount Pictures, but seemingly won’t be happening as development has stalled.
SOURCE: REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER
THE RONIN 