Quentin Tarantino has famously said he will only make 10 movies and then he will retire, and as both Kill Bill movies count as one, he only has one spot left, but there are some projects he can make that won’t necessarily count as part of those 10 movies. Quentin Tarantino’s career as a filmmaker began in 1992 with the crime movie Reservoir Dogs, which introduced viewers to Tarantino’s peculiar sense of humor and visual and narrative style.
Tarantino’s big break arrived two years later with Pulp Fiction, another crime movie but with the particularity of being told in a non-linear way. Since then, Tarantino has explored a variety of genres in his movies – from slasher with Death Proof to martial arts with Kill Bill, and he has even explored alternate versions of history with Inglourious Basterds and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. With Kill Bill and Kill Bill: Volume 2 counting as one, Tarantino has one more movie to go before retiring, but he can bend his own rules by making a movie that doesn’t count as one of the big 10 – and here’s every movie he can make without it being his final one.
Kill Bill 3
Tarantino isn’t a filmmaker fond of making sequels to his movies, but there’s one that the audience has been patiently waiting for: Kill Bill 3. Although Kill Bill: Volume 2 brought the story of The Bride (Uma Thurman) and Bill (David Carradine) to an end by having the former fulfill the movie’s title and kill the latter, there’s still room for more stories from the world of Kill Bill. Tarantino has been teasing a third Kill Bill movie since 2004, saying that at least a decade would pass before he made Kill Bill 3, as he wanted to give The Bride and her daughter, B.B., some peace. What Tarantino has shared about the story of Kill Bill 3 is that it would follow Vernita Green’s daughter, Nikki, who has been raised by Sofie Fatale (Julie Dreyfus) after The Bride killed her mother, and so Nikki is now looking for revenge against The Bride. However, B.B. is now all grown up too, and she’s ready to defend her mother. Tarantino has said Kill Bill 3 hasn’t happened due to his reluctance to take on more Kill Bill movies after the fatigue he endured in the making of the first two, but there’s still hope he can change his mind.
Killer Crow
Inglourious Basterds introduced the audience to the title group, led by Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), and whose mission was to kill as many Nazi soldiers as possible, with their ultimate goal being killing Hitler. Inglourious Basterds had a second plot that followed Shosanna Dreyfus’ (Mélanie Laurent) own revenge plan against the Nazis, but the original script included a third plot. In 2012, Tarantino revealed this third plot was all about “a bunch of black troops” that were done wrong by the American military and were ready for revenge, and he planned to make a movie about them titled Killer Crow. These troops were on an “Apache warpath” and would have killed “a bunch of white soldiers and white officers on a military base”, making their way to Switzerland and eventually meeting the Basterds. The movie would have been the third entry in Tarantino’s Basterds/Django trilogy, but unfortunately, it didn’t happen as he moved forward with other projects, but it’s one he could easily pick up again as he already has the idea for it.
Django/Zorro
Killer Crow would have been the conclusion to Tarantino’s Basterds/Django trilogy, but he later had another Django Unchained-related project in mind: Django/Zorro. In 2015, a crossover comic book of Django Unchained and Zorro, simply titled Django/Zorro and co-written by Matt Wagner and Tarantino was published, and in 2019, Tarantino picked Jerrod Carmichael to co-write a movie adaptation of it. Tarantino and Jamie Foxx expressed interest in having Antonio Banderas reprise his role as Zorro, but the project was ultimately left behind. If Tarantino is interested in making another Western without it being his tenth and final movie, Django/Zorro might be his best option.
Grindhouse 2
Tarantino explored the horror genre in his own way in the Grindhouse project with Robert Rodriguez, formed by Rodriguez’s Planet Terror and Tarantino’s Death Proof. In 2007, Tarantino revealed his plans for a Grindhouse sequel, with his segment being an “old-school Kung Fu movie in Mandarin with subtitles in some countries” and a “shorter, dubbed cut in others”. Although Death Proof is widely considered Tarantino’s weakest movie, Grindhouse 2 would be the best way to turn it around, and viewers would surely like to see a new collaboration between Rodriguez and Tarantino.
First Blood
Although David Morrell’s action-thriller novel First Blood has already been adapted to the big screen into the 1982 movie of the same name that made way for the Rambo franchise, Tarantino revealed in 2021 that he was interested in directing a movie adaptation of it. Tarantino even said he wanted to cast Kurt Russell as the sheriff and Adam Driver as Rambo, but as he only intends to direct one more movie, he most likely wouldn’t make his First Blood adaptation. However, Tarantino could find a way around it so First Blood wouldn’t count as one of his 10 movies, thus fulfilling a long-time plan of his and giving the audience a taste of what Rambo would be like in the Tarantino universe.
Star Trek
In 2017, it was announced that Tarantino had pitched a Star Trek movie to Paramount Pictures, and the idea was for him to direct the project with J.J. Abrams serving as producer. In early 2019, Tarantino confirmed his Star Trek movie was in development, but in December 2019, it was reported that he had left the project in order to focus on the making of a smaller-budget movie, though Tarantino stated the movie “might” be made, just not with him as director. Tarantino’s Star Trek movie gained a lot of attention, more so as it was later described as taking inspiration from gangster movies and involving time travel, so it’s not entirely unlikely that he could go back to it and finally bring it to life.
Double V Vega
One of Tarantino’s most talked-about unmade projects is Double V Vega, a movie that would have connected his first two movies, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. The first connection in the confirmed Tarantino movie universe is between Reservoir Dogs’ Vic Vega (Michael Madsen) and Pulp Fiction’s Vincent Vega (John Travolta), as they’re brothers, so Double V Vega would have seen them together. Double V Vega would have taken place before the events of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, taking the audience to Amsterdam when Vincent was there running “some club for Marsellus”, as he mentioned in Pulp Fiction. Vic would have visited his brother, and that’s as far as Tarantino got with the idea for the movie. Although it’s now too late for Madsen and Travolta to reprise their roles, Quentin Tarantino could go for a younger cast to finally tell the story of Vic and Vincent, and it wouldn’t count as his 10th movie as it’s a prequel/spinoff to his first two movies.
