Is anyone else getting the feeling that Quentin Tarantino was thinking an asterisk when he was talking about retiring after his tenth movie? It’s true that he did say he wasn’t going to be out of the game for good, but it would seem that he’s more than willing to take all the extra footage that he shot for Once Upon A Time in Hollywood and use it to great effect to make a miniseries that will feature much in the same way that The Hateful Eight did. As Kevin Burwick of MovieWeb has already stated this isn’t a for sure thing just yet, but the idea is there and we know how ideas can go at this point and time when it comes to Hollywood. All it takes is a push in the right direction and things will kick off in a big way, and given how much footage Tarantino seems to have lying around it might be that this could work. What the fans would have to say about it might be varied since fan reaction to the movie has been pretty positive thus far but some are going so far as to state that this didn’t feel like Tarantino’s older movies no matter how well it did. Personal taste and bias aside however it does seem as though it might be able to give Netflix a minor boost if it did happen.
Sangeeta Singh-Kurtz from Quartzy seems to think it might be a good idea to make the miniseries even longer and allow every story in it to breathe a little in an effort to really show off what Tarantino did and what he could do with fewer time constraints. This is an interesting idea to be honest but it also seems as though it could possibly backfire as Tarantino has for a long time now been all about the movies and hasn’t really dabbled much if at all into TV. Some fans might jump at the chance to see something like this while others might kind of cringe to think of what might happen to Tarantino’s vision once it leaves the big screen. To be perfectly honest from a personal standpoint it seems as though it might actually ruin his style and his ability to tell the story as he’s been doing for so long, but it could be worth a try at least. Those that might be adamantly against it are likely to be those that will say that nothing on the big screen ever really makes much sense once it’s translated to TV since the flow doesn’t seem to go both ways. They’d be right in part since the natural progression seems to be book to movie or TV to movie, it doesn’t typically go the other way and when it does it kind of feels like it loses a little something in the process.
Zack Sharf from IndieWire reminds us that the original cut of the movie went well over four hours, much longer than anyone is really willing to stay in the theater since eventually it doesn’t matter how comfy the seat is or that you can order dinner and go back to the concession stand for free refills in some places, you’re still going to want to get up eventually. Four hours or more is pushing it and while there are some folks that would gladly sit there dependent on the movie, other people have stuff to do. Two hours might not seem like a lot of time to maximize all the important stuff in a movie, but it’s nice and short and is possible when it comes to telling a story. Honestly it’s so much easier to read a book when you have the time or listen to one on audio if you really want the genuine feeling that you get from the literature. Movies that last more than two hours are starting to become more common but it’s still a slow rise since a lot of people are still wondering just why it might be seen as worthwhile to sit there and risk falling asleep halfway through the movie.
The Netflix idea might be a nice compromise since it wouldn’t be going to regular TV, but it still feels like a big step down since it’s not the usual fare that Tarantino goes in for. It’s been surmised that he didn’t want to keep going with his career out of a desire to quit while he was in his prime and on top, but trying something like this out seems to indicate that he has no fear that transferring this work into a miniseries and featuring it on Netflix will be all that bothersome. He could be right, I could be paranoid and quite wrong, but so far any movie that’s gone that route really hasn’t done all that well.
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