Quentin Tarantino doesn’t always make good on his promises or teases—see the A-Z of many unmade projects he once said he would make and didn’t. Or the fact that he strongly suggested he would direct a “Star Trek” movie only to finally admit, he wouldn’t (he didn’t even write the screenplay, but this in-limbo project is based on a story idea he came up with). But Tarantino recently promised something that looks like it’s coming true. During the last press cycle for “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood,” the filmmaker said he was likely going to write a book (or books), direct a TV series, make a tenth film and then retire.
As we’ve recently heard, the promise to write books is real and it was recently revealed he has two books in the works, one, a “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood” novelization and “Cinema Speculation,” a non-fiction book described as a “deep dive into the movies of the 1970s, a rich mix of essays, reviews, personal writing, and tantalizing ‘what ifs.’”
The latter isn’t unexpected as Tarantino has long been talking about writing film criticism and or some book about film analysis. “Cinema Speculation” is clearly it. Given the way he’s expanded recent works, the Netflix chaptered edition of “The Hateful Eight” and the long, still unofficially unreleased, “Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair,” perhaps an expanded novelization of his latest film wasn’t a major surprise either.
However, in a new news story about the novelization by the Associated Press, there’s a new and rather bold statement from the publisher Harper Collins. They call his novelization, “a fresh, playful and shocking departure from the film.” Now, for hardcore fans of Tarantino and “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood,” that’s pretty big news and suggests some major revision, changes, and well, something big.
READ MORE: The Lost, Unmade & Possible Future Films Of Quentin Tarantino
Is this spin or does the film have a new ending or narrative? It’s hard to say, but “shocking departure from the film,” definitely will raise the eyebrows (and hackles) of Tarantino fans who might have been initially expecting just an expanded version of the L.A. filmmaking paean and a love letter to that late Sharon Tate. Will the novelization ultimately be that different? Time will tell and not that much, given this first book is due summer 2021. The promise of a potential TV series? We’d love to see it, so hopefully, that one comes next after the books are out of the way.