Whilst his last film ‘The Hateful Eight’ left many underwhelmed, although we liked it, it was arguably a filmed theatre play but it did make $155m worldwide off its $44m budget and bought 70mm film stock to the public’s attention again something which Christopher Nolan is also keen on as we’ll see with the imminent release of ‘Dunkirk’.
Tarantino has been quoted several times in the last few years saying he will quit directing after 10 films, although he has subsequently qualified the statement and hinted he might return if he still had stories to tell. So with him saying that he will retire after ten films his next film will be his penultimate and is rumoured to be about the Manson family murders.
Details of the screenplay remain under wraps although the script appears to be based on actual figures and events from recent history which for Tarantino’s will be a first. The sequence of Manson Family murders in the summer of 1969 remains one of the most disturbing episodes in recent US history and remain notorious to this day with the killings carried out at the behest of ex-con and cult leader Charles Manson by members of his ‘family’, a commune-like collective that set up camp in California in the late 1960s.
It was a pretty grim scene when in August 1969 Manson’s group members slaughtered five people at the Hollywood residence of filmmaker Roman Polanski, including his then pregnant wife Sharon Tate where, having murdered her, they then tried to remove the foetus as a gift for Manson. Manson and his ‘family’ members were found guilty in 1971 and the ringleader, now 82, remains in prison. For once Tarantino, whose work has so much fantasy violence in it, would have to be very careful how this is all portrayed.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Tarantino’s longtime collaborator Harvey Weinstein is involved, and Brad Pitt, who starred in Inglourious Basterds, and Jennifer Lawrence have been approached. The actors’ representatives had not replied to requests for a comment and a spokesperson for The Weinstein Company had not confirmed involvement at time of writing. It’s still early days and the script has not yet been shopped to studios but if this is his next film its likely to start shooting next year.
