Quentin Tarantino’s ‘The Movie Critic’ Could Take Influence From a Scorsese Classic

Unbeknownst to most in the film industry, this year’s Cannes Film Festival presented one of the last chances for the great and good of Hollywood to gather and publicly discuss upcoming projects before the SAG-AFTRA strike began on July 14.

As part of some of the big deals being inked and films premiering on La Croisette, some major figures also gave interviews about their future films – including director Quentin Tarantino, who announced he was currently in pre-production for his newest project, The Movie Critic. Filming has since been put on hold, but he gave some insight into what we can expect.

What’s the big idea?

Tarantino told Deadline that the plot is actually based on a true story of a man who reviewed films for a porn magazine and will be set in 1977. “It’s based on a guy who really lived, but was never really famous, and he used to write movie reviews for a porno rag,” he said.

While Tarantino refused to name the exact magazine in question or the reviewer – early rumours had previously suggested the movie would focus on the late Pauline Kael, the influential film critic for the New Yorker – he said that the name of the publication in his film would be The Popstar Pages.

He added: “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 might be if he were a film critic… But the porno rag critic was very, very funny. He was very rude, you know. He cursed. He used racial slurs. But his shit was really funny. He was as rude as hell.”

Filming was due to start in LA at the end of 2023, but this has been pushed back now because of the strike.

Who’s going to star in it?

There’s no news on the casting yet, but Tarantino has ruled out Once Upon a Time in Hollywood stars Leonardo DiCaprio or Brad Pitt. Back in May 2023, he said: “I haven’t decided yet but it’s going to be somebody in the 35 year-old ball park. It’ll definitely be a new leading man for me.”

By September 2023, there was a name floating about for the lead: Paul Walter Hauser, who previously appeared in I, Tonya and BlackKklansman, but this has not been confirmed or denied.

Any other intel?

This could be Tarantino’s last ever film, as he’s previously insisted that he wants to quit filmmaking when he turns 60 – which he did in March 2023 – or when he makes it to ten films. His ninth, if you count Kill Bill Volume One and Kill Bill Volume Two as one films, was 2019’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.

Speaking with Playboy back in 2012, he said: “I want to stop at a certain point. Directors don’t get better as they get older. Usually the worst films in their filmography are those last four at the end. I am all about my filmography, and one bad film fucks up three good ones. I don’t want that bad, out-of-touch comedy in my filmography, the movie that makes people think, ‘Oh man, he still thinks it’s 20 years ago.’ When directors get out-of-date, it’s not pretty.”

He mentioned again that this could be the last outing for him as a director when the locations for the film were announced in September 2023, telling Deadline: “I love shooting in California. I started directing movies here and it is only fitting that I shoot my final motion picture in the cinema capital of the world. There is nothing like shooting in my hometown; the crews are the best I've ever worked with, and the locations are amazing.”