Originally published November 11, 2014. Updated April 13, 2018.
A couple of years ago, Quentin Tarantino suggested that he’d hang up his directing gloves after reaching ten films, stating that he didn’t want his filmography to suffer as he became an “old-man filmmaker”. Well, he’s now reiterated those thoughts during a Q&A at the American Film Market, where he was promoting his upcoming western The Hateful Eight.
“I don’t believe you should stay onstage until people are begging you to get off,” said Tarantino (via Deadline). “I like the idea of leaving them wanting a bit more. I do think directing is a young man’s game, and I like the idea of an umbilical cord connection from my first to my last movie. I’m not trying to ridicule anyone who thinks differently, but I want to go out while I’m still hard. … I like that I will leave a 10-film filmography, and so I’ve got two more to go after this. It’s not etched in stone, but that is the plan. If I get to the 10th, do a good job and don’t screw it up, well that sounds like a good way to end the old career. If, later on, I come across a good movie, I won’t not do it just because I said I wouldn’t. But 10 and done, leaving them wanting more — that sounds right.”
Tarantino also spoke about his inspiration for The Hateful Eight, stating that: “It’s less inspired by one Western movie than by Bonanza, The Virginian, High Chaparral. “Twice per season, those shows would have an episode where a bunch of outlaws would take the lead characters hostage. They would come to the Ponderosa and hold everybody hostage, or to go Judge Garth’s place — Lee J. Cobb played him — in The Virginian and take hostages. There would be a guest star like David Carradine, Darren McGavin, Claude Akins, Robert Culp, Charles Bronson or James Coburn. I don’t like that storyline in a modern context, but I love it in a Western, where you would pass halfway through the show to find out if they were good or bad guys, and they all had a past that was revealed. I thought, ‘What if I did a movie starring nothing but those characters? No heroes, no Michael Landons. Just a bunch of nefarious guys in a room, all telling backstories that may or may not be true. Trap those guys together in a room with a blizzard outside, give them guns, and see what happens.’”
The Hateful Eight is slated for release some time next year, with a cast that includes Tarantino alumni Kurt Russell, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern, Walton Goggins and Samuel L. Jackson alongside Channing Tatum (Foxcatcher), Demian Bichir (A Better Life) and Jennifer Jason Leigh (The Spectacular Now).
