Quentin Tarantino had plans to revisit the world of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood with a sequel centered on Brad Pitt’s Cliff Booth, but ultimately decided to abandon the project. Pitt, however, wasn’t ready to say goodbye to the character. He asked Tarantino for permission to bring the script to David Fincher, who jumped at the opportunity. The result is The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth, a unique collaboration in which Fincher directs from a script written by Tarantino.
Tarantino on Fincher Directing His Work
When Pitt suggested showing Fincher the Cliff Booth script, Tarantino told Empire that “you could have knocked me over with a feather.“
“I was like, ‘Really? You think he’d be interested? F***ing yeah: show it to him!” he said. “I wanted to know what he responded to. But the first couple of times we spoke, I was the male trying to talk this gorgeous woman into f***ing me. I was trying to maneuver it so I wouldn’t say anything that f***s sh** up.“
Tarantino was thrilled at the thought of Fincher directing his work, but he also didn’t want to let Pitt down by scrapping the project.
“I mean, one of the things that made this all work was my excitement over David doing my material,” he said. “I’ve gotten a lot of respect as a screenwriter, but I still feel that people think that I’m a director who just writes sh** for himself. The fact that a director of David’s calibre would spend a year-and-a-half of his life doing my material was, I thought, wonderful. It said a lot about what was on the page. The other aspect was Brad playing this character. He was the one I felt I was really letting down when I didn’t do it. I felt bad about that, and the fact he took it to his guy and his guy responded to it… That was fantastic.“
Tarantino Wanted the Full Fincher Experience
Fincher is famous for demanding many takes on his movies, but he wanted to change that with The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth. Until Tarantino spoke up.
Fincher recalled, “I remember at the beginning I said to Quentin, ‘I want to make sure I know this inside out because I want to limit myself to five/six takes.’ And he was like, ‘WHAT?! I want the full effect, man. I want 28 takes for every single f***ing set-up!’ I was like, ‘Okay, okay!’“
Tarantino found it “really exciting” to see Fincher work, describing him as an “intense marionette artist.“
The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth will be released in IMAX theaters on November 25, but before it lands on Netflix on December 23.
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