Quentin Tarantino is Planning To Write a Book, Develop a Play, and a TV Series Before Directing His 10th Film

It looks like it’s going to be a long time before Quentin Tarantino ends up directing his tenth and possibly final film. Personally, I don’t think his tenth film will be his last, but maybe he’ll surprise us and never make another movie again.

The filmmaker has several projects in development that he is hoping to make happen before he jumps into his next movie. While speaking at a BAFTA event in London (via Variety), Tarantino laid out the projects that he’s currently working on. Those projects involve writing a book as well as producing a play and a TV series. He explained:

“Normally when I finish a script we pretty much go right into production on it. When I finished Hollywood, I wasn’t ready to start. Part of the reason I wasn’t ready to start it was because I was just really plugged into writing at that point….So I finished Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, finished that script, put it aside, and then I wrote a play. And then I wrote a five-episode TV series. And right now I’m writing a book and I’m hoping that I’ll be finished in three months. So the idea will be hopefully by March maybe I’ll be finished with the book – and then, theoretically, maybe I’ll do the play, and then theoretically I’ll do the TV show, and then by that point I’ll be thinking maybe what I’ll do for the 10th movie.”

Tarantino has talked about these projects in the past. The book he’s writing will center on a WWII veteran who isn’t a fan of the kind of films that Hollywood is producing in the 1950s, but his love for movies is rekindled when he discovers foreign films. Tarantino talks about it, saying:

“I’ve got this character who had been in World War II and he saw a lot of bloodshed there. And now he’s back home, and it’s like the ’50s, and he doesn’t respond to movies anymore. He finds them juvenile after everything that he’s been through. As far as he’s concerned, Hollywood movies are movies. And so then, all of a sudden, he starts hearing about these foreign movies by Kurosawa and Fellini…And so he’s like, ‘Well, maybe they might have something more than this phony Hollywood stuff.’ So he finds himself drawn to these things and some of them he likes and some of them he doesn’t like and some of them he doesn’t understand, but he knows he’s seeing something.”

As for the TV show and play, that is likely Bounty Law, which in the fictional show that Leonardo DiCaprio’s character starred in in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. He previously said, “I wrote a play and I wrote five episodes of a TV series. It’s Bounty Law.” He went on to explain:

“From watching the different old Western shows and everything, I did it to get in the head of Bounty Law. I ended up starting to really like the idea of Jake Cahill, as a character. I really started loving those half hour ’50s Western scripts. The idea that you could write something like 24 minutes, where there was so much story crammed in those half hour shows, with a real beginning and a middle and an end. Also it was kind of fun because you can’t just keep doubling down and exploring. At some point, you’ve got to wrap it up. I really liked that idea. I’ve written five different episodes for a possible Bounty Law black-and-white half hour Western show.”

In regards to if DiCaprio will come back to reprise his role, Tarantino doesn’t think he will, but will welcome him with open arms if he does:

“I can’t imagine Leonardo is going to want to do it. Cast somebody else? If he wants to do it that would be great. I’m not planning on that but I have an outline for about three other episodes. So I’ll probably write about three other episodes and then just do it. Direct every episode. They’re a half hour long. I wouldn’t mind doing it for Netflix but I’d want to shoot it on film. Showtime, HBO, Netflix, FX. But I also like the fact that I built up this mythology for Bounty Law and Jake Cahill.”

Even though we aren’t getting a new Tarantino film for a while, it’s good to know that he’s still working and that we will be able to eventually enjoy the fruits of his labor.

So what about that Star Trek film he was looking to direct? He doesn’t say anything about it, but I assume it’s not going to happen. We’ll just have to wait and see what Tarantino does next.