Quentin Tarantino Says Final Movie Will Be ‘Epilogue-y’

Quentin Tarantino has been claiming since at least the release of Django Unchained that he was going to retire from directing movies with his 10th film. That plan hasn’t really changed, even as we now stand on the precipice of it with the release of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (his ninth movie… if you count both volumes of Kill Bill as a single film). In fact, whatever that film might be is starting to take vague tonal shape in the filmmaker’s head, as he revealed Wednesday that he thinks his last movie will be the equivalent of an epilogue to his career.

During a press conference in Moscow, where Tarantino traveled to in order to present Once Upon a Time in Hollywood to a Russian audience (and apparently take a Kremlin tour), Tarantino said the following (via THR):

“If you think about the idea of all the movies telling one story, and each film is like a train boxcar connected to each other, this one would sort of be the big show-stopping climax of it all. And I could imagine that the 10th one would be a little more epilogue-y.”

While Tarantino is unsure of what that next film might be, it makes at least a vague sense as, in many ways, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood feels like the film the director was building to since at least Inglourious Basterds where his brand for period piece, historical revisionism took on added dimensions beyond just vengeful bloodlust. Indeed, it returned a little to the wistfulness of Jackie Brown with the director now being at the same moment as his middle-aged protagonists.

With that said, if his next film is going to be somewhat of an epilogue, it does make one wonder how seriously keen he is about directing a Star Trek movie for Paramount. Tarantino infamously pitched an idea for an original Trek film to Paramount that would use the cast introduced by J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek (2009) but within the continuity of the old television series. He went so far as to write the story, which Mark L. Smith (The Revenant) is now turning into a screenplay. However, Tarantino has not fully committed to directing the film yet, and if he is dead-set on the next movie being his last, is Star Trek really the best avenue to go “epilogue-y?”

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For the record, Tarantino has claimed he does not plan to fully retire as an artist or creative after a 10th film. While he has indicated he’d like to start a family with his wife Daniella Pick (they married in 2018), he also claims he’s considered writing novels, plays, and/or television series after retiring from cinema. We’ll see if that holds.

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David Crow is the Film Section Editor at Den of Geek. He’s also a member of the Online Film Critics Society. Read more of his work here. You can follow him on Twitter @DCrowsNest.