Quentin Tarantino Wants To Direct a Theatrical Production of THE HATEFUL EIGHT
Writer/director Quentin Tarantino has said he wants to retire from making films after he directs his tenth movie, but that doesn't mean he'll be finished creating art. He currently has plans to move into television, and in a directors' roundtable interview with THR, there's an exchange with director Ridley Scott that fans of QT's might be interested to read:
TARANTINO I'm probably only going to make 10 movies, so I'm already planning what I'm going to do after that.
SCOTT Why? Why?
TARANTINO I want to stop at a certain point.
SCOTT What would you do then?
TARANTINO I want to write novels, and I want to write and direct theater. I've got to see how I feel when Hateful Eight is over, if I still have the same juice for it, but the next thing I'd like to do is a theatrical adaptation of Hateful Eight, because I like the idea of other actors having a chance to play my characters. So that's where I'm at. I'm working my way into that time period, where I write novels and film pieces and film books, but in particular direct theater.
Have you ever directed theater?
TARANTINO No, I never have.
Have you ever written a play?
TARANTINO No. You know everything I've written. (Laughs.)
Hateful Eight had a staged reading. What did you learn from that?
TARANTINO This was actually a big part of my thought process. I wouldn't be so confident with thinking about exhibition [the movie will have a road-show rollout in 70mm projection] if I wasn't confident with the material. And the script-reading really went a long way, as far as that's concerned. Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained, you can read almost as a piece of literature, but I still had to figure them out [before shooting]. It's not for sure that I'm going to pull them off. There is a "finding it" in the course of making it. But with Hateful Eight, it was right there. I mean, if I had those actors and we did it in a little theater on Santa Monica Boulevard, 99 seats, it would kill, it would be terrific. I'm not saying the movie is great; I'm just saying that I like the material, so I had a confidence in it.
I'm still not allowed to tell you what I thought about The Hateful Eight, but it would make an absolutely fantastic stage play. It mostly takes place in one location, and Tarantino's legendary way with dialogue is on full display. It's cool that Tarantino is open to other actors playing his characters; I imagine at a certain point, you could get locked in to the idea of a specific actor playing a role and not be able to think about anyone else's interpretation, but I had the rare opportunity to see a Live Read of his Reservoir Dogs script and hearing his dialogue filtered through a different perspective is a very cool experience. I can only imagine how theater actors must be salivating at the chance to play a Tarantino character on stage, and having QT actually direct the play will be a fascinating creative change of pace for him.
Joey will have a full review of The Hateful Eight when the embargo lifts later this month, so stay tuned.