Quentin Tarantino's unrealized projects

Long before his directorial debut with Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino met with Craig Hamann and was introduced to his 30-40 page script, My Best Friend's Birthday. Tarantino helped expand the script up to 80 pages and agreed to direct the film. On a $5,000 budget and a 16 mm camera, the film was shot in the span of four years. The completed run time came out to 70 minutes but due to a lab fire during editing, the film was nearly destroyed. The remaining 36 minutes was saved, roughly edited together, and displayed at several film festivals.[1][2][3][4]

After Tarantino met Lawrence Bender at a Hollywood party, Bender encouraged him to write a screenplay. His first attempted script, which he described as a "straight 70s exploitation action movie" was never published and was abandoned soon after.[5]

In the 1990s, Tarantino was offered a chance to write and direct a film adaptation of Green Lantern. He declined the offer, despite being a huge comic book fan.[6]

Tarantino was linked at one point to an Iron Man film for New Line Cinema with Tom Cruise. Nothing came out of this.[7]

After the release of Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino contemplated developing a film based on Luke Cage. Being a huge fan of the character, Tarantino held a meeting with producer Ed Pressman, who owned the film rights to Luke Cage, and proposed a film based on the character and suggested casting Laurence Fishburne as Cage. Despite liking the idea, Tarantino shifted his interest for Pulp Fiction.[8][9]

Tarantino was briefly attached to a film adaptation of the 1960s TV series The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. He opted to do Jackie Brown instead. Eventually, a film adaptation of the show was released in 2015 to lukewarm critical and box-office results.[9]

Sometime in the 1990s, Tarantino considered remaking Lucio Fulci's 1977 giallo Sette note in nero (Seven Notes in Black), released in America as The Psychic. He intended for Jackie Brown co-star Bridget Fonda to star in the film. By the year 2000, Tarantino gave an update on the proposed remake: "It's a project in the murky future. I don't even own the rights to that stuff. It's one of those things where it's like if somebody buys the rights to make it, I won't make it. They can totally fuck it up. If it's meant to happen, it’ll happen.” Since that remark, no other updates have emerged since.[9]

In the mid-1990s, after the success of Pulp Fiction, Tarantino was attached to direct The Killer Inside Me. Uma Thurman was set to star as Amy Stanton. Juliette Lewis was considered for the part of Joyce Lakeland and Brad Pitt was attached to star as Lou Ford. This effort fell through after the September 11 attacks, because the film script was deemed too violent.[10] The film was eventually directed by Michael Winterbottom in 2010, without the involvement of Tarantino.[11]

Fresh off of the success of Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino went to Constantin Films with a completed script for a proposed Silver Surfer film. Ultimately, Constantin Films passed on his script.[12]

In the late 1990s, after collaborating together on Pulp Fiction, John Travolta personally approached Tarantino to direct the film Battlefield Earth. He passed on the project, due to scheduling conflicts.[13][14]

Tarantino was at one point offered to direct a film adaptation of the comic book The Men in Black. He turned the project down in favor of Pulp Fiction and Barry Sonnenfeld was chosen to direct the film in 1997 to critical and box office success.[15]

Tarantino sold his Natural Born Killers script to producers Jane Hamsher and Don Murphy for $10,000 after his previous attempt to direct the film himself on a half a million dollar budget.[16] Hamsher and Murphy sold his script to Warner Bros. The script caught the attention of director Oliver Stone, who drastically reworked the script with David Veloz and associate producer Richard Rutowski, while retaining Tarantino's dialogue. Due to the heavy rewrites from Stone, Veloz, and Rutowski, Writer's Guild of America ruled out for Tarantino to receive story credit.[17]

Tarantino gave a negative response to the film. Despite wishing the best for Stone during the film's production,[18] he responded to the film saying, "I hated that fucking movie. If you like my stuff, don't watch that movie."[19]

Tarantino was also offered to direct the film Speed. He turned the offer down in favor of Pulp Fiction.[15]

Tarantino first teased at the Morelia International Film Festival in Mexico back in 2009 about possibly doing a crime film in the style of a 1930s Warner Bros-type gangster film; nothing came from this since then.[9]

In the mid 2000s, Tarantino expressed interest in directing Casino Royale, the 2006 film adaptation of Ian Fleming's debut novel and the debut of James Bond.[20] Unfortunately, Eon Productions had no interest in hiring Tarantino. He claims to have worked behind the scenes with the Fleming family, and believed this was the reason why filmmakers finally went ahead with Casino Royale.[21] Tarantino also said he would have set it in the 1960s and would have only made it with Pierce Brosnan returning as Bond. By February 2005, Martin Campbell was announced as the film's director,[22] and the film was released on November 14, 2006 to critical and box-office success.

Tarantino wanted to take his hand at another popular '70s genre film, where Jackie Brown was with blaxploitation and Kill Bill was with kung-fu films, this time with a disaster film. Taking inspiration from films like The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, and Airport, Tarantino wanted to get as many of his reoccurring actors as possible and jokingly dubbed this Airport 2005. He remarked his casting choice as so: "Travolta could be the pilot, Pam Grier the stewardess, Robert Forster, Michael Madsen, Tim Roth, Harvey Keitel, Bridget Fonda.”[23][9] No other updates have emerged since then, and Forster died on October 11, 2019.[24]

Tarantino expressed in January 2008 his interest in a raunchy remake of the 1966 sexploitation film Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!. The film has quite an influence on Tarantino; even going as far as to referencing the movie and giving co-writer/director of Faster, Pussycat!, Russ Meyer, thanks in his 2007 film Death Proof. His top casting choices would have been Kim Kardashian, Eva Mendes, and Britney Spears. By July of that same year, Tarantino was considering casting porn star Tera Patrick as Varla. When the rumor of Britney Spears playing Varla was brought to his attention, a source close to Tarantino replied that, "There is no truth to this." Actress Tura Satana clarified in an interview that she is working closely with Tarantino in rewriting the script. Since then, no other updates have emerged from his remake.[25][26]

Both Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez have expressed interest in making a sequel to their 2007 double-feature film Grindhouse.[27] Tarantino said that he wants to shoot an "old-school Kung Fu movie in Mandarin with subtitles in some countries, and release a shorter, dubbed cut in others" for his segment.[28] It has also been reported by Rotten Tomatoes that Edgar Wright may expand Don't into a feature film.[29] According to Eli Roth, he and Wright have discussed the possibility of pairing Don't with Thanksgiving for a Grindhouse sequel. Roth is quoted as saying "We're talking to Dimension about it. I think they're still trying to figure out Grindhouse 1 before we think about Grindhouse 2, but I've already been working on the outline for it and I would do it in a heartbeat."[30]

In the 2000s, Tarantino acted as an executive producer for Eli Roth's films Hostel and Hostel: Part II.[31][32][33] In July 2009, Roth confirmed that he would not be directing Hostel: Part III and Tarantino also did not return as an executive producer.[34]

Tarantino had expressed interest in making a screwball romantic comedy film in the vein of Howard Hawks films that would've starred two A-list leads. No other news updates have emerged since.[23]

In 2009, Tarantino had expressed interest in doing a biographical film, despite having such disdain for the genre. According to him in an interview on Charlie Rose, he mentioned:

There is one [biopic] that I could be interested in, but it would probably be one of the last movies I [ever make]. My favorite hero in American history is John Brown. He's my favorite American who ever lived. He basically single-handedly started the road to end slavery and the fact that he killed people to do it. He decided 'If we start spilling white blood, then they're going to start getting the idea.'[9]

In April 2004, Tarantino told Entertainment Weekly that he was planning a sequel:[35]

Oh yeah, initially I was thinking this would be my "Dollars Trilogy". I was going to do a new one every ten years. But I need at least fifteen years before I do this again. I've already got the whole mythology: Sofie Fatale will get all of Bill's money. She'll raise Nikki, who'll take on The Bride. Nikki deserves her revenge every bit as much as The Bride deserved hers. I might even shoot a couple of scenes for it now so I can get the actresses while they're this age.

At the 2006 San Diego Comic-Con International, Tarantino stated that, after the completion of Grindhouse, he wanted to make two anime Kill Bill films: an origin story about Bill and his mentors, and another origin starring the Bride.[36][37]

Details emerged around 2007 about two possible sequels, Kill Bill: Volume 3 and Volume 4. According to the article, "the third film involves the revenge of two killers whose arms and eye were hacked by Uma Thurman in the first stories." The article adds that the "fourth installment of the popular kung fu action films concerns a cycle of reprisals and daughters who avenge their mother's deaths".[38]

At the 2009 Morelia International Film Festival, Tarantino stated that he intended to make a third Kill Bill film.[39] The same month, he stated that Kill Bill 3 would be his ninth film, and would be released in 2014.[40] He stated that he wanted 10 years to pass after the Bride's last conflict, to give her and her daughter a period of peace.[41]

In December 2012, Tarantino stated: "I don't know if there's ever going to be a Kill Bill Vol. 3. We'll see, probably not though."[42] In January 2016, it was reported that Tarantino has spoken with Thurman on a potential return for a sequel, but noted that Tarantino remains non-committal on actually making a sequel.[43]

In July 2019, Tarantino stated: "Me and Uma have talked about it recently, frankly, to tell you the truth, I have thought about it a little further. We were talking about it literally last week. If any of my movies were going to spring from my other movies, it would be a third ‘Kill Bill.’”[44][45] In December, Tarantino said he had spoken to Thurman about an "interesting" idea for a new film: "It would be at least three years from now. It is definitely in the cards",[46][47] while Uma Thurman confirmed that "Tarantino wrote something"[48]

In 2002 it was announced that Vivendi Games (originally Black Label Games) had acquire the rights to develop a video game based on Kill Bill that was meant to coincide with the film's 2003 release, with Tarantino serving as creative consultant.[49] The projected was shelved in 2003,[50] with some demo footage leaking online.[51]

Following the success of his Kill Bill films, Tarantino began developing a kung-fu followup film that would be entirely in Mandarin. It was to be made before Inglourious Basterds. The inspiration to do another martial arts film came from Tarantino seeing Zhang Yimou's House of Flying Daggers at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. It wasn't known if Tarantino would hire fluent Mandarin people or celebrities that would have to learn Mandarin. The plan on releasing was to have two theatrical cuts, one with subtitles and the other with an out-of-sync English language dubbing, similar to old-school re dubs. Since then, no updates have emerged from the ambitious project.[52]

When developing Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino began to consider making The Vega Brothers. The film would've starred Michael Madsen as Vic Vega (Mr. Blonde) from Reservoir Dogs and John Travolta as Vincent Vega from Pulp Fiction. In 2007, due to the actors' ages and because of their character's death in their respected films, Tarantino claimed that the film, retitled Double V Vega, was "kinda unlikely now."[53]

Following an unexpected box-office flop from his film Death Proof, he was offered to work on tentpole, bigger budgeted films. One such project was a remake of the Michael Crichton film Westworld. Tarantino rejected the offer and went to work on other films.[23]

In 2015, a Django Unchained sequel crossover comic entitled Django/Zorro was released by Dynamite Entertainment.[54] In June 2019, Tarantino had picked Jerrod Carmichael to co-write a film adaptation based on the crossover comic book series.[55][56][57][58][59] In December 2019, it was reported that Tarantino was looking to make a smaller, stand-alone film, leaving development on Django/Zorro in doubt.[60]

In 2011, Tarantino briefly mentioned that he would like to do a children's film.[9] He recalls in an interview on the Reelz Channel:

I've actually always wanted to come up with a story that I wanted to do as a kid's movie," he says. "I remember from working at Video Archives that if a kid likes a movie, like say Mighty Ducks, they see that movie 20 times, 30 times. They know the names of all the kids in The Mighty Ducks and it's like, that's an audience member I want on my side! I just have to come up with the right storyline.[61]

In December 2010, the production of a fourth From Dusk till Dawn film was in the planning stages,[62] but further work on this possibility has not been revealed. In November 2013, it was reported that From Dusk till Dawn: The Series had begun production, without any further mention of the film.[63]

In early 2016, Tarantino announced that he plans to direct and write a stage play version of The Hateful Eight.[64] Since then, the stage adaptation has not been released.

In a late 2012 interview with the online magazine The Root, Tarantino described his next film as being the final entry in a "Django-Inglourious Basterds" trilogy called Killer Crow. The film will depict a group of World War II-era black troops who have "been fucked over by the American military and kind of go apeshit. They basically – the way Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) and the Basterds are having an 'Apache resistance' – [the] black troops go on an Apache warpath and kill a bunch of white soldiers and white officers on a military base and are just making a warpath to Switzerland."[65] Since then, no updates have emerged.

In May 2010, Bret Easton Ellis, author of the 1985 novel Less Than Zero, confirmed in an interview that Tarantino had been "trying to get Fox to let him remake the 1987 film".[66] In 2012, when asked whether Less Than Zero would be remade, Ellis once again confirmed that Tarantino "has shown interest" in adapting the story.[67] At the San Diego Comic-Con in 2014, Tarantino revealed he is contemplating a possible science-fiction film.[68]

In January 2010, Tarantino announced that his next film, after Inglourious Basterds, will be a medieval film. He offered a role to Helen Mirren as a foul-mouthed monarch. The film was to retain Tarantino's signature traits, bloody violence and foul language, and was to be set in England's Middle Ages. Mirren had previously played a queen in 2006's The Queen as Queen Elizabeth II and was willing to play a monarch yet again. Although she was interested in the role, no other updates have emerged from this project, and his follow-up film to Inglourious was Django Unchained.[69]

It was announced in December 2017 that Tarantino had pitched an idea to Paramount Pictures for a new Star Trek film.[70] A writers room, consisting of Mark L. Smith, Lindsey Beer, Megan Amram and Drew Pearce, was assembled to flesh out the concept. The plan would be for Tarantino to direct the film, with J. J. Abrams, who had previously directed and produced earlier Star Trek reboot projects, onboard to produce.[71] Smith later became the frontrunner to write the screenplay later that month.[72][73]

In May 2019, Tarantino confirmed that his Trek film was still in development, saying "It's a very big possibility. I haven't been dealing with those guys for a while cause I've been making my movie. But we've talked about a story and a script. The script has been written and when I emerge my head like Punxsutawney Phil, post-Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, we'll pick up talking about it again."[74] Tarantino discussed the project in June 2019, stating that Smith had turned in his script, and Tarantino would soon be adding in his notes. He asserted his intention for the film to be rated R.[75]

In December 2019, it was reported that Tarantino had left the project, looking to make a smaller budget film.[76][77] In January 2020, Tarantino stated the film "might" be made, but he would not direct it.[78]