For the past several years, movie directorial ingenues–like Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, James Cameron, and Quentin Tarantino–have expressed their disdain for where Hollywood is going.
Many of their ilk destroy comic book movies on the regular calling them “not real cinema” or “cut-and-paste hack jobs.” However, it’s been Tarantino, the aforementioned savant storyteller, who stays in full “Get off my lawn” character most of the time.
His latest cantankerous firing act took aim at streaming movies, and the safety was on full automatic. Take cover Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Prime Video, Paramount+, Peacock, and the rest of you. Here come the eff-word bombs.
Quentin Tarantino Could Be Standing Alone On This One
While sitting down with Deadline for an exclusive presser about his upcoming film career finale The Movie Critic, he wasn’t exactly glowing with his review of anything not featured in the theater. He confirms that will be his last film but left a small opening for the remainder of his career.
No, I could do a TV show. I didn’t say I’m going to go into the night darkly, all right? I could do a TV show. I could do a short film. I could do a play. All kinds of things I could do, but I’ll probably just be more of a writer. Quentin Tarantino to Baz Bamigboye/Deadline, May 27, 2023
So, that’s positive, right? A storyteller like Quentin Tarantino comes along once in a generation. Hollywood and its throng of fans will miss him. So, when he says he “could do a TV show,” people get excited. Then, he continued that thought, still advocating for the cinematic experience.
Well, I’ve always thought that. And they eventually get to television. I saw a lot of them that way. I’m probably going to be doing the movie with Sony because they’re the last game in town that is just absolutely, utterly, committed to the theatrical experience.
Shots fired at Universal, Paramount, Walt Disney, MGM, and the rest of those bums putting exclusive content on an app! What’s next, QT?
Well, that’s where this gets fun.
Irony, Party of One?
When you’re an avant-garde recluse like Quentin Tarantino, you have be willing to go out on a limb. Since many of his elite cronies have already succumbed to the alluring gold from streaming channels like bugs to that zapper, Tarantino is on his own. His opinions may be as well.
It’s not about feeding their streaming network. They are committed to theatrical experience. They judge success by asses on seats. And they judge success by the movies entering the zeitgeist, not just making a big expensive movie and then putting it on your streaming platform. No one even knows it’s there.
Well, “Pops,” according to the Motion Picture Association, there are more than 1.1 billion streaming subscriptions around the world. Seeing how there are “just 8 billion” people alive, we wouldn’t say that “no one” even knows.
Tarantino is a relic–an old-school, Orson Welles type in a sea of fly-by-night content creators. Of course, he loves the cinema. So do we. The thing he is missing is that the rest just love good storytelling, which is why he is so lauded for his work. The guy is a masterclass storyteller, but to poo-poo on genres he doesn’t like and platforms he doesn’t support is short-sighted and misleading.
Why? This.
Well, he has done things for television streaming already. The extended four-and-a-half-hour version of The Hateful Eight was given to Netflix. He’s not beyond making something for streaming because money talks and that change he’s offering walks the marathon. His ass is showing, so he should just back down in his director’s chair and watch TV.
He’ll be back. They all come back. See you soon, QT–at the movies and then from our couch.
Since he saw ‘Dune’ in the $1 movie theater as a kid, this guy has been a lover of geek culture. It wasn’t until he became a professional copywriter, ghostwriter, and speechwriter that he began to write about it (a lot).
From the gravitas of the Sith, the genius of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, or the gluttony of today’s comic fan, SPW digs intelligent debate about entertainment. He’s also addicted to listicles, storytelling, useless trivia, and the Oxford comma. And, he prefers his puns intended.
