Quentin Tarantino Reveals Steven Spielberg's Brutal Advice After Death Proof Bombed
Usually a box-office sure thing, Quentin Tarantino says Grindhouse’s stumble shook his confidence — and he reveals the tough-love advice Steven Spielberg gave him after Death Proof flopped with audiences.
Quentin Tarantino just picked up the Vanguard Award at the Burbank International Film Festival — BIFF, not to be confused with TIFF — and during a sit-down with The Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Feinberg, he ended up revisiting the one movie that genuinely rattled him: his 2007 Grindhouse entry, Death Proof.
The Grindhouse swing that didn’t land
Back in 2007, Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez rolled out Grindhouse, a two-for-one throwback to exploitation double features. Cool idea, tough sell. Tarantino’s half, Death Proof, didn’t connect like his other films. It opened to $11.5 million against a $67 million budget and, in his words, that first weekend shook him. Coming off the run of Kill Bill and the hype halo of Sin City, he figured audiences would follow him anywhere. They didn’t. He even likened it to being dumped by the moviegoing public.
- 2007: Grindhouse hits theaters; Death Proof underperforms with an $11.5 million opening on a $67 million budget, leaving Tarantino humbled and surprised after expecting his post–Kill Bill momentum to carry over.
Phone-a-friend: Tony Scott and Steven Spielberg
Feeling low, he called two heavyweights for perspective: Tony Scott and Steven Spielberg. The gist of their advice was blunt but grounding — did you make the exact movie you wanted to make, and are you happy with it? If yes on both counts, that’s already more than most get in this business. Sometimes the crowd shows up, sometimes it doesn’t.
Spielberg added a little extra that stuck with him:
"Quentin, you’ve been pretty lucky. But the next film that’s a hit, you’re going to enjoy that more than all your other hits put together, because you’ve been here now. You know what it’s like to have a flop. The next time you have a hit, it’s going to be easy."
The rebound
Next out of the gate for Tarantino was Inglourious Basterds — awards attention followed, including a win for Christoph Waltz, and Tarantino himself now calls that one his masterpiece. Hard not to see Spielberg’s prediction paying off there.
Inside baseball detail I love: even Tarantino needed the coaching staff. When your pep-talk team is Tony Scott and Steven Spielberg, that’s a pretty solid huddle.