Quentin Tarantino’s Oscar-nominated “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” has been available for months now. But that doesn’t mean fans and the filmmaker, especially, are done talking about it. In fact, Tarantino is talking about how he may revisit the story for a new project, completely separate from the “Bounty Law” series that he wants to direct. He’s talking about expanding the ‘Once Upon a Time’ story into the world of the printed page.
Speaking on the Pure Cinema Podcast (via IndieWire), Tarantino briefly mentioned a new project that he’s been thinking about, which also ties back into his most recent feature.
“I hadn’t thought about that until recently. But now I’m thinking a lot about it. I might be writing a novelization to ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,’” the filmmaker said.
Obviously, as we’ve seen with other novelizations of films (cough ‘Rise of Skywalker’ cough), the expanded page count allows for a filmmaker to delve a bit deeper into the characters and plot of his film. And considering we know that there are tons of deleted scenes that didn’t make the final cut of the film (but maybe could make it on Netflix), there is a lot of material that Tarantino has lying around that could make for the definitive story of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”
Another interesting aspect of this proposed novelization is how the filmmaker would actually be involved in the writing. Often, as with just about every other novelization of a feature film, a third-party writer is hired to take the story and expand on it for the paperback edition. It’s incredibly rare to see a filmmaker actually take the idea of a novelization and use it for his own means of expanding the story.
Perhaps one scene from the film that could be altered or expanded on is the moment when Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) removes his shirt when he’s working on the roof of a house. Obviously, the scene has become pretty iconic due to its, uh, sex appeal, but according to Tarantino, the filmmaker can’t take credit for how the scene played out. That’s all Pitt.
Speaking on another podcast (3 Girls, 1 Keith via IndieWire), Tarantino explained that he first tried to tell Pitt how to take off the shirt in the scene. But after Pitt explained that he should just do it how he finds it more comfortable, Tarantino knew to just take a backseat and let the heartthrob do his thing.
Tarantino said, “I’m like, okay, this guy knows exactly what time it is. Shut the fuck up and let the master do his job! Even when you see him in the work shed and the way he puts on the leather gloves and puts the wire in his mouth all butch and macho. He just knows what time it is.”
You can watch ‘Once Upon a Time’ anywhere you want on VOD and other means. And hopefully, eventually we’ll have a novelization to read, as well.
Oh, and if you’re interested, here’s the Brad Pitt scene described above:
