Quentin Tarantino admits he felt he’d let Brad Pitt down by shelving the Cliff Booth movie
Quentin Tarantino nearly binned his Cliff Booth movie—until Brad Pitt showed the script to a certain director, jolting the project back to life.
If you thought Once Upon a Time in Hollywood had said all it wanted about aging stuntmen and Tinseltown fantasy, well, Quentin Tarantino wasn’t quite finished either. He actually toyed with doing a whole sequel about Brad Pitt’s character, Cliff Booth. Except, as things go, Tarantino pulled the plug on making it himself – only for Pitt to step in, still smitten with the character, and lob the script over to David Fincher. Fincher, for his part, practically bit Pitt’s hand off. So now we’ve got The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth – scripted by Tarantino himself but steered by Fincher. Not your typical director/screenwriter tag team, that’s for sure.
How Tarantino Handed It Over
Tarantino didn’t see this one coming. Pitt suggesting Fincher for the job? That’s not the combo most would predict. Tarantino told Empire he was floored.
‘You could have knocked me over with a feather. I was like, Really? You think he’d be interested? F***ing yeah: show it to him!’
He wanted to hear what Fincher saw in the script. But he was nervous, too – and compared their phone calls to a rather awkward first date, in classic Tarantino hyperbole. Let’s say he didn’t want to scare off either Pitt or Fincher from diving into his work. The idea that Fincher, a director who’s browbeaten half of Hollywood with his precise – bordering on maniacal – approach, wanted to direct his script was a big deal. Tarantino’s got plenty of recognition as a writer, but, as he admits, most people still peg him as a director who only pens for himself. So having Fincher in the hot seat felt like validation.
And as for Pitt, Tarantino says he didn’t want to let him down by shelving the film – he would have felt guilty abandoning Cliff Booth for good, especially after Pitt’s enthusiasm. The fact the project got resurrected through Pitt’s sheer force of will clearly delighted Tarantino – Fincher responding to it was a bonus.
The Fincher & Tarantino Approach
Fincher, infamous for his insistence on dozens of takes, apparently intended to rein himself in for this one and keep things snappy. Until Tarantino piped up. Fincher remembers his plan, and how quickly Tarantino talked him out of it:
‘I remember at the beginning I said to Quentin, "I want to make sure I know this inside out because I want to limit myself to five/six takes." And he was like, "WHAT?! I want the full effect, man. I want 28 takes for every single f***ing set-up!" I was like, "Okay, okay!"’
Tarantino absolutely relished watching Fincher at work, calling him an ‘intense marionette artist’. Can’t say you get that praise from just anyone – must have been something to see Fincher puppeteering a Tarantino script.
The finished film, The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth, hasn’t sneaked out quietly either. It’s heading for a big-screen, IMAX release on 25 November, before dropping on Netflix from 23 December.
The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth lands in cinemas on 25 November before streaming on Netflix a month later.