Fans of Quentin Tarantino hang off his every word and ravenously await each of his movies, which is what makes his notorious habit of brainstorming ideas out loud in interviews and then not following through on them so irritating. Over the years, Tarantino has proposed spin-offs and sequels to his most popular movies, unique takes on obscure genres, and historical epics that haven’t come to fruition.
Tarantino’s followers have learned to take his rudimentary project announcements with a pinch of salt at this point. So, here are 10 movie ideas that Tarantino has mentioned over the years that he never ended up making.
Double V Vega
All of Quentin Tarantino’s movies are tied together by a shared fictional universe. For example, Vic Vega (a.k.a. Mr. Blonde) from Reservoir Dogs and Vincent Vega from Pulp Fiction are implied to be brothers.
The writer-director has often talked about pairing up Michael Madsen and John Travolta in a movie about the Vega brothers called Double V Vega, but it never came to fruition. The movie had to be a prequel, because both characters (spoiler alert!) died in their respective movies, and the actors got too old to make this spin-off work.
Killer Crow
Tarantino has often talked about Killer Crow, a blaxploitation movie set in World War II that would complete the historical revenge trilogy he began with Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained.
Recycled from an unused Basterds subplot, Killer Crow would tell the story of a platoon of black soldiers who got screwed over by the American military and forged an Apache warpath to Switzerland.
John Brown Biopic
Tarantino generally dismisses biopics as excuses for actors to win Oscars, but he’s often mentioned that if he was ever going to direct a biopic, he’d make one about the life of abolitionist John Brown.
Brown is one of Tarantino’s heroes from the annals of American history, and he’s said that if he did make a biopic about the guy, it “would probably be one of the last movies I [ever make].” He claims he’s only going to make one more after Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, so it doesn’t seem likely that this one will make it to screens.
The Big Boss Of Rome
Tarantino has made plenty of crime movies, but he’s never made a mob movie. However, he did mention a concept for one titled The Big Boss of Rome when he was asked about shooting a fake trailer for Grindhouse.
The director explained, “I am a huge fan of the Italian mafia movies – especially the films of Fernando di Leo. So, I came up with a ‘70s-style Italian mafia movie called The Big Boss of Rome…I even wrote a little script for it, and Robert [Rodriguez] was, ‘Oh, man, you gotta do that one!’ So, I may do it for another movie.”
Airport 2005
After tackling blaxploitation and kung fu movies, Tarantino wanted to give audiences his take on another popular film genre from the ‘70s: the star-studded disaster movie. In the vein of The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, Tarantino discussed a movie that he jokingly dubbed Airport 2005.
He’d cast all his regular collaborators in the story of a doomed flight, specifically mentioning that John Travolta would play the pilot and Pam Grier would play an air stewardess. But it never happened.
Less Than Zero
Bret Easton Ellis’ slice-of-life 1985 novel Less Than Zero was adapted for the screen in 1987, but according to Ellis, Quentin Tarantino fancies trying his hand at his own adaptation and has even attempted to convince Fox executives to let him re-adapt the book.
The last word on Tarantino’s Less Than Zero remake was back in 2012, and 20th Century Fox doesn’t even exist anymore thanks to Disney, so it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.
A Medieval Epic Starring Helen Mirren As A Foul-Mouthed Queen
After the release of Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino announced that his next movie would be a medieval epic made in his style, with all the graphic violence and explicit language we’ve come to expect from the Tarantino oeuvre.
He offered the lead role of a foul-mouthed queen to Helen Mirren, and despite the fact that she’d already played a queen in the movie The Queen, Mirren was eager to take the part. However, there were never any updates on the project and Tarantino’s next movie after Inglourious Basterds was Django Unchained.
Luke Cage
In the early ‘90s, when Tarantino made himself one of Hollywood’s most sought-after filmmakers with his feature debut Reservoir Dogs, he started working on a Luke Cage movie with Laurence Fishburne.
However, the project was dead in the water when Q.T. decided to make Pulp Fiction instead. Luke Cage wasn’t the only comic book movie Tarantino tried to make around this time. He brought a Silver Surfer script to Constantin Films, but they turned it down.
The Psychic Remake
The title of the little-seen ‘70s Italian psychological horror movie Sette note in nero literally translates to Seven Notes in Black, but it was released in America as The Psychic. It’s about a clairvoyant woman who discovers a skeleton in her husband’s wall.
Quentin Tarantino considered remaking the movie in the late ‘90s with his Jackie Brown collaborator Bridget Fonda playing the lead role. Appropriately, the last thing Tarantino said about the project was, “If it’s meant to happen, it’ll happen.” It hasn’t happened, so it obviously wasn’t meant to.
Kill Bill: Volume 3
The most frequently mentioned unmade Tarantino movie is Kill Bill: Volume 3. Apparently, it would tell the story of Vernita Green’s daughter Nikki being raised by Sofie Fatale (who received all of Bill’s money after his death) and trained by a blinded Elle Driver to exact revenge on the Bride.
Tarantino once mentioned that Chloë Grace Moretz could play the Bride’s daughter B.B. in the movie. A third Kill Bill film has yet to come close to production, but Tarantino has said that if he ever makes a new movie connected to his previous movies, it’ll be Kill Bill: Volume 3.
