Quentin Tarantino must be enjoying the French weather at Cannes, because he’s letting loose a gang of information concerning his upcoming rumored final film. While promoting his surprise Directors’ Fortnight screening for the film festival, Tarantino spoke about The Movie Critic and offered new details concerning the project.
The film will take place in 1977 California, and Tarantino says it “is based on a guy who really lived, but was never really famous, and he used to write movie reviews for a porno rag.”
In terms of who will play this critic, don’t expect a former lead like DiCaprio or Pitt since Tarantino is going for a new, youngish actor. Tarantino says, “I haven’t decided yet, but it’s going to be somebody in the 35-year-old ballpark. It’ll definitely be a new leading man for me.”
Deadline’s Baz Bamigboye pressed the filmmaker for more details, and all he offered was, “I do have an idea of somebody I can imagine doing it really well,” but he claims he’s unsure whether to give it to the actor.
Looking to give out even more details (and a signature Tarantino rant), we learned that our titular critic would write for the fictional magazine, The Popstar Pages. While not revealing the real critic and the publication’s name, Tarantino might’ve hinted at how our character will act.
Tarantino reveals The Movie Critic’s real-life inspiration: “He wrote about mainstream movies, and he was the second-string critic. I think he was a very good critic. He was as cynical as hell. His reviews were a cross between early Howard Stern and what Travis Bickle [Robert DeNiro’s character in Taxi Driver] might be if he were a film critic.”
He adds, “He wrote like he was 55, but he was only in his early to mid-30s. He died in his late thirties. It wasn’t clear for a while, but now I’ve done some more research, and I think it was it was complications due to alcoholism.”
As we previously reported, it seems Paul Schrader was right about the Rolling Thunder connection. Not only is Tarantino screening the film at Cannes, but The Movie Critic is set in the same year that John Flynn’s 1977 movie Rolling Thunder was released. Let’s see if he’ll recreate scenes from this movie like Schrader originally leaked.
There’s no set release date, as Tarantino reveals The Movie Critic enters “pre-pre-production” next month.
