Major Stars and Studios Vie for a Crack at Quentin Tarantino’s 9th Film
Quentin Tarantino’s next movie is currently being shopped around Hollywood, and just about every major studio is courting the auteur. Tarantino’s mysterious ninth film, his first since 2015’s claustrophobic, frozen western The Hateful Eight, moves the action from the 19th to the 20th century (1969 to be exact). For a while the scuttlebutt was that Tarantino was making a movie about Charlie Manson, but at a recent post-screening brunch for Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled, he insisted the film is not about Manson per se, but rather about the year 1969—which happens to be when the Manson Family killed Sharon Tate and four other people in the home she shared with Roman Polanski. Word now is that Manson will be a part of Tarantino’s film, but not the sole focus, the way Hitler part of, but not the sole focus, of his WWII epic Inglourious Basterds.
What is absolutely certain is that the film drawing a lot of heat, both from studios that want to distribute it and from stars that want to be in it. Tarantino had previously exclusively worked with Harvey Weinstein’s production companies (Miramax and later The Weinstein Co.), but now he’s shopping his script around, and according to several major outlets, including Variety, Paramount, Sony and Warner Bros. are the finalists. Tarantino pitched all three studios, and, in turn, they’ve been pitching him. Warner Bros. deployed some pretty creative moves in order to woo the director, including filling the studio’s parking lot with vintage cars from the 1960s, and, changing the Warner Bros. logo visible on the marquee to the logo from 1969. Sony prepared a multimedia presentation that showed how’d they release the film, as well as they’ve beefed up international distribution.
Meanwhile, per usual on a Tarantion film, the level of talent circling the script is immense. It’s been reported previously that the writer/director wants Margot Robbie for the Sharon Tate role, and that he has written parts for both Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt. Deadline reports that Tom Cruise is possible for one of the two lead roles. Actors have long lined up for a crack at Tarantino’s brilliant, wordy, wild scripts—it’s hard to think of an era, or a year, that could be better suited to his particular brand of genius than the wild, bloody, bitter end of the ‘60s.
The film’s expected to be R-rated (of course), and would begin production in mid-2018 with a 2019 release date.
Featured image: Writer/Director Quentin Tarantino on the set of THE HATEFUL EIGHT. Photo: Andrew Cooper, SMPSP / © 2015 The Weinstein Company. All Rights Reserved.
