Quentin Tarantino is a man of his word. Back in July, our 2019 Filmmaker of the Year teased that he had written five episodes of the fictional Bounty Law series that appears in his Oscar-nominated epic, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. At the time, he said he wanted to direct every episode, shop it to Netflix (or another network), and that it didn’t matter if Leonard DiCaprio would be involved.
Well, that wasn’t just guff, to borrow from DiCaprio’s Howard Hughes. In a new interview with Deadline, Tarantino doubled down on the idea, stressing that the Bounty Law series is one of the many projects he has lined up before he “retires” with a 10th film.
“As far as the Bounty Law shows, I want to do that, but it will take me a year and a half,” he explained, ” I ended up writing five half-hour episodes. So I’ll do them, and I will direct all of them.”
(Ranking: Every Quentin Tarantino Movie from Worst to Best)
He then digressed on how this all started out as a writing exercise.
“It got an introduction from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, but I don’t really consider it part of that movie even though it is,” he said. “This is not about Rick Dalton playing Jake Cahill. It’s about Jake Cahill. Where all this came from was, I ended up watching a bunch of Wanted, Dead or Alive, and The Rifleman, and Tales of Wells Fargo, these half-hour shows to get in the mindset of Bounty Law, the kind of show Rick was on. I’d liked them before, but I got really into them. The concept of telling a dramatic story in half an hour. You watch and think, wow, there’s a helluva lot of storytelling going on in 22 minutes. I thought, I wonder if I can do that?”
Whether or not DiCaprio will join in for this rodeo remains to be seen. Considering the role of Rick Dalton nabbed him an Oscar nomination — with some major potential to win — we wouldn’t be surprised if he climbs aboard. After all, if anyone can get the guy to make the leap to television, it’s certainly Tarantino. Could you imagine if he got Brad Pitt to do the stunts, too? Okay, we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
(Read: Quentin Tarantino’s 50 Greatest Quotes)
But so is Tarantino. Sort of. In the same interview, he also chewed on his tenth and final feature, suggesting it might have some spiritual ties to his feature film debut. “There is an umbilical cord from the tenth film to Reservoir Dogs, all the way to the end,” he said, adding, “I think that’s kind of cool.” Could he be taking another bite outta crime?
In our own interview with the filmmaker, Tarantino likened his tenth movie to an “epilogue” or “an author’s note,” stating, “I might come up with a really big idea. But right now, the idea of a smaller audience almost all the way around is appealing to me.” Perhaps he’s since come up with something epic? Or, maybe this umbilical cord connects to something small?
Best to wait and see. For now, the auteur is plenty busy as Once Upon a Time… heads to the Oscars with 10 nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and so on. That’s all without mentioning that four-hour cut he’s teased, the book he wants to write, the play he wants to pen, and whatever is still going on with Star Trek.
We’ve heard of a reservoir dog, but a renaissance man?
