Tarantino Just Gave Kill Bill the Biggest Compliment of His Career
Quentin Tarantino has never been shy about ranking his own work.
In recent years he's called Once Upon a Time in Hollywood his "favorite" film, and he's described Inglourious Basterds as his "masterpiece." But in a new interview, he admitted there's only one movie he believes he was born to make — and it wasn't either of those.
Speaking on The Church of Tarantino podcast, the director said:
"I think Kill Bill is the ultimate Quentin movie, like nobody else could've made it. Every aspect about it is so particularly ripped, like with tentacles and bloody tissue, from my imagination and my id and my loves and my passion and my obsession. So I think Kill Bill is the movie I was born to make."
The two-part saga was both a critical and financial success:
- Combined budget: about $60 million (split between Vol. 1 and Vol. 2)
- Worldwide box office: $333 million total
- Critical reception: Vol. 1 at 85% on Rotten Tomatoes, Vol. 2 at 84%
- Audience scores: CinemaScore of B+ (Vol. 1) and A– (Vol. 2)
Tarantino also weighed in on his other films, singling out The Hateful Eight as one of his proudest directing achievements.
"There's an aspect of Hateful Eight that I actually think is probably my best directing of my material, i.e., the material is written and it's solid. So it's not like I have to create it, like Kill Bill, it's solid, it's right there, and I actually think it's my best servicing [of] my material as a director."
He placed it just behind his strongest screenwriting efforts in Inglourious Basterds and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
The road ahead
Fans are still waiting to learn what Tarantino will do for his long-rumored 10th and final film. The previously announced The Movie Critic has been scrapped because, as he put it, it was "too much like the last one," set in Los Angeles in the 1970s.
One project that moved forward without him is The Adventures of Cliff Booth, a Netflix spinoff of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Brad Pitt is returning to his role, with David Fincher directing after Tarantino passed.
"I love this script, but I'm still walking down the same ground I've already walked. It just kind of unenthused me," Tarantino explained.
Filming on the Cliff Booth movie is already underway, though Netflix has not announced a release date.