Quentin Tarantino says concern about disappointing Brad Pitt weighed on him when he decided against directing the sequel to “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” Speaking to Empire, the filmmaker said Pitt was the person he felt he had let down most by stepping away from the director’s role.
Tarantino wrote the screenplay that became Netflix’s “The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth,” which is scheduled to reach IMAX cinemas on Nov. 25. He ultimately decided the project would not be his 10th and final film as a director, leaving another filmmaker to bring his script to the screen.
Pitt won the best supporting actor Oscar for playing Hollywood stuntman Cliff Booth in the original 2019 film and was reportedly eager to continue the character’s story. According to Tarantino, the actor was disappointed at the prospect of not playing Booth again. David Fincher then took on the project, renewing a collaboration with Pitt that includes “Seven,” “Fight Club” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”
The possibility of Fincher directing the screenplay caught Tarantino by surprise. He told Empire that he enthusiastically supported letting Fincher read it when the idea was raised. Once they began speaking, however, Tarantino worried that his eagerness might put the other director off and was careful about what he said during their early conversations.
For Tarantino, Fincher’s involvement also carried significance beyond finding someone to direct the sequel. Although he feels he has earned considerable respect for his screenwriting, he said he believes people still tend to regard him as a director who writes material for himself. Having a filmmaker of Fincher’s standing commit a year and a half to his screenplay felt like an endorsement of the writing.
The sequel moves Booth’s story from the 1969 setting of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” to 1977. His work has changed as well: the former stuntman is now operating as a Hollywood studio fixer.
In the same Empire interview, Fincher described Pitt as deeply engaged with the role. He said the experience presented an unfamiliar situation because the actor playing the central character understood that character more thoroughly than the director ever could. That knowledge sometimes required Fincher to challenge Pitt’s interpretation as they worked through the new material.
Fincher described their respective understanding of the story as complementary: he knew the new elements, while Pitt knew Booth. When the director pressed him with questions about the character, Fincher recalled, Pitt remained confident in his grasp of the role, responding, “No, no, no. I got this.”
