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As Django Unchained is about to hit UK cinemas, we take a look at the Tarantino projects that didn’t make it to the big screen.
My Best Friend’s Birthday
This was the first movie Tarantino directed whilst working at Video Archives in Manhattan Beach in 1987. Taking a grueling four years to put the 70 minute zero budget feature together the negative fell victim to a fire and only 36 minutes of the film remained intact. This could have turned out to be a blessing in disguise as Tarantino himself describes the film as poorly directed.
Vega Brothers Movie
He had been toying with the idea of a sequel/prequel to Reservoir Dogs and Pulp fiction by uniting John Travolta and Michael Madsen as the Vega Brothers since 2002. Although there is no connection between the two characters other than they share a surname, this project has been the subject of movie folklore and is another one of those ideas he never got around to making a reality.
“I even had a title for it. It was called Double V Vega. It actually would have taken place during the time Vincent was in Amsterdam, when he was running one of Marcellus’ clubs in Amsterdam. And Vic goes to visit him,” revealed Tarantino on The Opie and Anthony Show.
He went on to explain why the project was no longer happening “We’re a little older now, and since they both died – it would have to be a prequel. I actually came up with a way I could have done it, even being older and dead where they all had older brothers and both of their brothers got together because the two guys died. And they wanted revenge or something like that. But now, they [the actors] are too old for that. I got to say, it’s kind of unlikely now.”
Casino Royale
Looking for the the ultimate royale with cheese, Tarantino is a huge James Bond fan, so much so that back in 2004 he went public with his desire to remake Casino Royale with Pierece Brosnan;
“I don`t see that they have anything to lose at all. They`ve got this gigantic franchise, they can`t do anything wrong with it. Pierce Brosnan`s only going to do one more movie for them, if that, so if he stayed on to do one more with me, lets just this one year go my way and do it a little differently. I won`t do anything that will ruin the series.”
Tarantino met with Brosnan which the actor confirmed in an interview with the New York Times; “I went to them and asked about making “Casino Royale, which is the first Ian Fleming book. I had hooked up with Quentin Tarantino, who wanted to direct the movie.” However, it appeared as though their brave new vision for the Bond franchise wasn’t shared by the producers as they rejected the concept outright.
Despite the producers turning down Tarantino’s idea, a few months later they announced that Casino Royale would be the next Bond movie and Brosnan would be replaced. This has proved a continued sore point for Tarantino, in an interview with Total Film he vented his anger over being shut out of the development of the movie; “I never saw Casino Royale because I was so mad at those guys. They should have talked to me about it. They said publicly that Casino Royale was unfilmable, but the minute I said I would do Casino Royale, it’s on all the websites and it is the film that people want to see. They should have said thank you”.
After the recent success of Skyfall, rumours once again resurfaced that he was inline to direct the next entry but Tarantino was quick to quash the gossip “Casino Royale was the one I wanted to direct, they [the producers] missed their opportunity.”
Kill Bill Volume 3
This is still listed on his IMDB page and 2013 marks the tenth anniversary of the first movie. Previously it looked like a sure thing as Tarantino said , “The Bride will fight again”, in the interview from 2009 he went on the say; “I think me and Uma needed a 10-year break, I love the character and I think she deserved 10 years of peace. She deserved 10 years with her child, Bibi. But after 10 years something will happen that makes her fight again.”
It seems as though he has fallen out of love with the idea as during a recent interview with We Got This Covered at the Toronto premiere of Django Unchained, Tarantino was asked about the potential sequel; “I don’t know if there’s ever going to be a ‘Kill Bill. Vol 3.’ We’ll see, probably not though.”
We may have seen the last of The Bride but Tarantino is already thinking about his next project. Late last year he spoke about another possible future film; Killer Crows would complete an unofficial trilogy following Inglorious Bastards and Django Unchained.
“My original idea for Inglourious Basterds way back when was that this would be a huge story that included the smaller story that you saw in the film, but also followed a bunch of black troops, and they had been f***ed over by the American military and kind of go apesh*t.
“They basically – the way Lt. Aldo Raines and the Basterds are having an ‘Apache resistance’ – the black troops go on an Apache warpath and kill a bunch of white soldiers and white officers on a military base and are just making a warpath to Switzerland.”
“That would be the third of the trilogy. It would be connected to Inglorious Basterds too because Inglorious Basterds are in it, but is about the soldiers. It would be called “Killer Crow” or something like that.”
He plans on retiring from filmmaking when he reaches 60 to focus on writing film books, so as he turns 50 in March his movie making days are numbered. Given it takes him anywhere between two and four years to get a project written, shot, edited and released we could only have a few Tarantino movies left.
Django Unchained is out in cinemas on January 18th.
