Quentin Tarantino is reuniting with a past collaborator for his directorial swan song.
Brad Pitt is in talks to star in the “Pulp Fiction” director’s upcoming film “The Movie Critic,” according to reports from Deadline and Variety.
USA TODAY has reached out to representatives for Pitt and Tarantino.
This will mark the third Tarantino-directed film that Pitt has starred in after 2009’s “Inglourious Basterds” and 2019’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” Pitt also appeared in 1993’s “True Romance,” which was written by Tarantino but directed by Tony Scott.
Pitt would be the first known cast member of Tarantino’s “The Movie Critic,” which is expected to be based on a real film critic whom the director admires. Tarantino told Deadline in 2023 that the film is set in California in 1977 “and is based on a guy who really lived, but was never really famous, and he used to write movie reviews for a porno rag.”
It wasn’t immediately clear whether Pitt, 60, will be playing the title movie critic, though Tarantino previously told Deadline the film’s star would be a “new leading man for me” and would be around 35 years old.
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Pitt won the Oscar for best supporting actor for Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” which saw him play a stuntman, Cliff Booth, opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in 1969 Hollywood. The film, which was nominated for 10 Academy Awards including best picture, was a hit at the box office, grossing almost $400 million worldwide.
Tarantino, 60, has for many years said he plans to retire from directing movies after his 10th film in order to maintain a consistently high quality in his filmography. “I know film history, and from here on in, directors do not get better,” he said on “Real Time with Bill Maher” in 2021.
This would make “The Movie Critic” Tarantino’s final film, as the director considers his two-part “Kill Bill” saga to be a single movie. After he retires, Tarantino has said he could direct television and continue writing books, having already dipped his toe into the latter arena. He published a novelization of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” in 2021 and a film criticism book, “Cinema Speculation,” in 2022.
“The Movie Critic” doesn’t yet have a confirmed release date or distributor.
