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OT: Tarantino Completes Script and Shops to Studios His "Manson Movie"

posted 7 years ago by ecarle (14979)
21 replies | jump to latest

I'm always on the Quentin Tarantino watch, and it looks like his train is on the tracks again.

There are articles in circulation that he has completed his script about Los Angeles in the "Charles Manson years" of 1969 and 1970; and that, with Harvey Weinstein and his company out of action, QT is shopping the project to other studios, which means competitive bids, which means big bucks for QT.

That said, I can name at least two studios that co-produced earlier QT movies with Harvey: Universal(Inglorious Basterds) and Columbia(Django Unchained.) I loved how QT opened those movies with the old 1960s Universal logo and 1960s Columbia logo -- its part of the 'film buff fun" of a QT picture.

Of course, coupled with all that fun "film geek/buff stuff" are the usual issues with QT: a counterbalancing of great dialogue and great actors with sudden jolts of gruesome violence or offensive content. Its the QT package, and I know that some people hate it, but I've grown to consider it a trade-off: no movie ever entertains me more than a QT movie, even with the sick or over-indulgent touches.

Some "clues" are developing on this new QT project. QT himself says the movie "isn't about Manson, its about 1969." Someone else who evidently read the script wrote that Manson to this story is like Hitler to Inglorious Basterds -- he's part of the subject, but not there a lot of the time(but hey, Hitler proved VERY important to Basterds -- he gets killed in it. Hah.)

QT is interested in Margot Robbie playing Sharon Tate...danger signals. How much of the Tate murder will we see? Or perhaps Tate gets lots of scenes BEFORE her gruesome death.

QT veterans Brad Pitt and Leo D'Caprio are being approached, as well as one newbie: Tom Cruise. I'm not sure there are roles for all three of them, they are under consideration maybe for the same roles(cop roles will be key.)

Someone else who read the script says it is in the tradition of "Pulp Fiction" in that it returns QT to the Los Angeles environs and types of that script. I doubt that the PF vibe can be fully recreated 25 years later(yikes!), and this time it will be "period."

The fact that the script has been read by some suggests that it might be "leaked." Hateful Eight was(but never made too public.) Django was -- I read that script on the internet a year before the movie came out , and though about 1/3 of that script didn't make it in the movie, certain things DID -- the fates of Leo and Walz for instance.

One thing that bugged me -- and now doesn't -- about a Manson Murder script is: how can QT get his trademark humor into a story about such savage murders of such innocent people? And then it hit me: he got great comic lines into stories about Nazi Germany and the cruel slavery of America -- he can probably pull it off here(funny dialogue between cops?)

BTW, QT got into some trouble(and some cheering) for coming out against killer cops when Hateful Eight premiered. I wonder which way cops will be treated in this film?

He's shopping the script and casting now. Production set to begin in mid 2018 for 2019 release.

Between this and Scorsese's The Irishman -- I have reason to live for two more years. At least.

PS. As I post this, Charles Manson is gravely ill and hospitalized, might die at 83. Great news! And one of his ladies who killed was cleared for parole by a California Board...but Governor Jerry Brown gets the final say..

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

Apparently QT has sold rights to the project to Sony. Key conditions reportedly included: $100 million budget, 20% (from 1st dollar) of Gross to QT, final cut and complete control of casting to QT of course.

I guess that one thing QT has going for him is that he doesn't make many films. One script every 3-5 years is hardly back-breaking and presumably that means lots of time to get any script QT feels like shooting into pretty distinctive shape, even for him to work out (no matter how implausibly!) how each new film fits into the same distinctive history/universe.

Sony will have read the new script and presumably must like it, but they also just know that, with the possible exception of Jackie Brown, with QT it's 'all one movie' and that he'll polish and refine the script until it's true that there are multiple scenes and speeches in whatever new era is tackled that sound exactly like they could have come out of Reservoir Dogs/True Romance/Pulp Fiction. When I first heard about the Manson project I thought it sounded like QT was going to try something new, but the hints dribbling out suggest lots of freedom to do the QT-usual.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Apparently QT has sold rights to the project to Sony.

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Aha. I think Sony was in on Django -- and, as somehow "connected" to Columbia, that means we will see Lady Columbia circa 1966 at the front of the movie, not doubt.

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Key conditions reportedly included: $100 million budget,

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And to think, QT was considered an "indie filmmaker" in the beginning; I'd say he still is. Could he be the only "indiefilm maker with $100 million budgets?" Did Hateful Eight have that high a budget? Probably Basterds and Django did, if only because of star salaries.

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20% (from 1st dollar) of Gross to QT,

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So if it makes 100 million, that's 20 million to QT. And its gonna make more than that worldwide.

"Why he is famous" -- and a little crazy.

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final cut and complete control of casting to QT of course.

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Yep. Its funny how many "name" directors DON'T have that.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I guess that one thing QT has going for him is that he doesn't make many films.

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He's edging into Kubrick territory -- Warners gave Kubrick all the time and money to make any movie he wanted, because it was like a big favor to them when he decided to make one.

Of course, it got ridiculous with Kubrick. Four years from Clockwork to Barry Lyndon. Five years from Barry Lyndon to The Shining. Seven years from The Shining to Full Metal Jacket. TWELVE freaking years from Full Metal Jacket to Eyes Wide Shut.

Now QT did make us wait six years from Jackie Brown to Kill Bill 1.

But he's picked up his pace. About every three years, now. Except the Manson Movie will be four from Hateful Eight, give or take.

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One script every 3-5 years is hardly back-breaking and presumably that means lots of time to get any script QT feels like shooting into pretty distinctive shape, even for him to work out (no matter how implausibly!) how each new film fits into the same distinctive history/universe.

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I read the Django script before I saw the movie, and what was interesting there is that the finale was entirely different in terms of what happened to "foil" Jackson and the plantation people. Its as if QT decided, "no, that's not good enough, let's try this version."

Moreover, the Django script I read had a much enlarged version of the villain played by Walton Goggins . From that script with the longer role, Kevin Costner was first announced(then dropped out) and then Kurt Russell was announced(and then dropped out.) He was a HORRIBLE character, shooting slaves dead if their teeth weren't good. He was still pretty horrible in the final version -- out to castrate Django -- but not much of a character, screen-time-wise.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Some random thoughts:

In my much younger life, I got to have this same "experience" that I have with QT("A new QT movie has been announced! Who will be in it? What's it about? When will it come out?") with Hitchcock only for three movies: Topaz, Frenzy, and Family Plot.

It was exciting each time for an excited young Hitchcock fan who had just seen Rear Window, Vertigo, The Birds and North by Northwest on TV (with Psycho forbidden fruit). I didn't KNOW that these new films were going to be substandard in certain ways, I was simply excited whenever Hitchcock would announce in the papers that he had chosen a project, or hired a writer, or cast the film, or gone into production, or had a release date. Off and on, through the years, I'd comb Time, Newsweek, the LA Times, the NY Times(at the library) and "latch on" to key details, as each of these films were announced.

There were false alarms on Hitchcock. After Topaz came out, Hitchcock announced The Short Night as his next film. Another spy movie. Ho hum. And then -- outta nowhere -- came word that he was going to make a psycho thriller instead. Called Frenzy. Oh boy!

It was in late 1973 that Hitchcock announced he would film the book "The Rainbird Pattern" next. But it took all of 1974 and half of 1975 before more was announced: a title (Deceit), and a cast(Bruce Dern, Karen Black, Barbara Harris, Roy Thinnes.) Both the title and Thinnes would be famously replaced. Enter William Devane and Family Plot.

After Family Plot, we got announcements of "Unknown Man 89," from an Elmore Leonard novel, with McQueen or Reynolds as hoped-for stars. Nope. Hitch switched back to The Short Night.

And with The Short Night, eventually a cast was announced: Sean Connery as the hero, Walter Matthau as the villain, Liv Ullman as the heroine.

And Hitch died. And it was never made. (And I think the three stars had just allowed their names to be used as goodwill gestures.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Anyway, that was then, this is now.

QT is pretty much the ONLY filmmaker who creates that anticipation still in me(and at my age, yet!) and there's got to be a reason for that.

I think the reason is: he's as close as we've REALLY got TO a Hitchcock now.

His movies are all "genre." Whether thriller(gangster division) or Western(and Hateful Eight had a mystery-thriller feel to it)...he does what Hitchcock did: gives us an exciting violent fantasies, well-written(by others for Hitch) with some of the best actors out there.

Other possible Hitchcocks never quite got the same mojo going -- DePalma(too derivative OF Hitch), Spielberg(not Hitch-like for very long), Tim Burton(closer, but more whimsical all the time.)

No, I think QT ends up now where Hitchcock was then -- the "master entertainer" with a decidedly disturbing streak.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Which brings me to:

Should I be so excited about a new QT film given his obvious closeness to Harvey Weinstein and knowledge of his dirty deeds?

Uh...sure.

If there is one thing I know by now, it is that the world can be a very tough and dirty place. Lots of nice people live in it, but there are places and areas where the "movers and shakers" can be monstrous. Wall Street. DC. Hollywood. I wouldn't want to work with them, or live among them, or particularly know them.

But I have to live with their product in one case(Wall Street, DC) and I CHOOSE to enjoy their product in the other (Hollywood.)

I've had a strange viewpoint developed over the years that I guess I will share here. Its about the lower case "political" celebrities like Rosie and Bill Maher and the Fox News people and Colbert and Limbaugh and Kathy Griffin. They all get paid very big bucks to be -- in public -- very combative and angry and "out there." But none of them are particularly talented(Maher was in couple of really bad B-movies before he found his easy ticket in political talk.) And it feels to me like they "sold their souls." Because SOMEBODY has to be out there being combative, they took the high pay to be such, and we made them "stars." But they are stars of a very depressing sort. And I think that's why a few of them are very messed up.

At least QT has a great writer's talent and has developed(in concert with his cinematographers) a great visual talent.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Meanwhile, back at QT's Manson project.

One thing I can't remember...but I can surely look up...is how long it took after the murders (August 1969) for the killers to be actually caught and rounded up for trial. Everybody knows these murders as "the Manson Murders" now, but there were several months(as I recall) that LA was in terror with the killer or killers on the loose.

You will recall that I've said I lived in LA in 1967(when Psycho was the big deal on local TV). Well, I had moved far away from there by 1969. So I watched the terror in my old city "from a comfortable distance."

Here's a memory. In August of 1969, my family and I had gone to a Saturday matinee of a movie called "Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies," with Tony Curtis...a weak attempt to recreate "Those Daring Young Men in Their Flying Machines." We came out of the theater in the afternoon. Back then, in that city(distant from LA) there was an "afternoon edition" of the paper, and the headline screamed something like "ACTRESS SHARON TATE AND FIVE OTHERS MURDERED IN HOLLYWOOD HILLS."

So, that's where I was.

It was a pretty long time ago, within a human lifespan.

I will be intrigued to see how QT handles this material. I figure that much of it will take place in the period BEFORE the murder and then during the period of seeking the killers.

QT isn't much for surreal or artful storytelling; this should be pretty straightforward stuff. And the key will be: who plays who? If Charlie Manson is played by a lesser actor, and Brad Pitt is the cop...well, the cop is the lead. (Or cops...role for Leo? role for Tom?)

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I'll note this again: though some stray folks got killed by Manson's gang along the way, the central murders were of the Hollywood people on one night -- and then a middle-aged "regular people" couple chosen ENTIRELY BY RANDOM...a few days later? It was those second murders that terrified me...Sharon Tate made the mistake of renting a home from Doris Day's hippie music producer son Terry Melcher. Manson hated Melcher over a failed record deal and sent his killers up to "get Melcher," and got the wrong people. (Melcher wasn't living in the home.)

But the "entirely random couple" -- the LaBiancos -- were simply chosen from a random house picked from a random street (the killers bypassed one house with a kid's bike outside.)

Exactly how much QT wishes to linger on this horrific material(remember, Sharon Tate was fairly along in a pregnancy when she died) will be a tough call for him: he knows how and when to wallow in gore, but this was real violence done to real people.

Methinks the film will go in another direction, likely. A lotta talk. A "Jackie Brown" LA criminal vibe. Cops. Hippies. Musicians.

And maybe this exchange:

After the murder of Sharon Tate, acerbic Superagent Sue Mengers told a scared Steve McQueen:

"Don't worry, Steve. They're not killing stars. Only featured players."

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

As I post this, Charles Manson is gravely ill and hospitalized, might die at 83.

Bingo.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

As I post this, Charles Manson is gravely ill and hospitalized, might die at 83.

Bingo.

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Yeah. Dead and gone and that's great. It almost seemed like he was helping QT promote his movie. Though I understand Manson figures in the current season of American Horror Story.

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Manson got covered in a big way in the book "Helter Skelter" of the 70's. It was made into a TV mini-series that had to pull punches at the murders and in sexual details. I don't think the story has really been told -- but I'm not sure it SHOULD be told.

There are myriad themes and "takeaways" from Charlie Manson. How he grew his hair long and fit himself right into the hippie/counterculture music scene. How he used a small team of sexy ladies to get into Hollywood circles because, well -- the ladies had sex with the Hollywood men(here we go again.) Manson was a career criminal with a horrific childhood but he FIT the late sixties because he was a con man too. He was a pimp along the way, and he used that talent to collect his ladies.

But it is those ladies...and some of the young men in his Family -- that are the scariest aspect of the Manson story to me. He wasn't a lone wolf psycho killer. He collected men and women who were alienated at home(often, very REGULAR homes, with regular moms and dads) and molded them into a private army who were ultimately willing to kill for him.

I recall reading that with some of these young men and women, their families FEARED their ever coming home. Families moved, changed addresses, hid phone numbers, because they were terrified of their own children coming home to terrorize them. And that was BEFORE Manson indoctrinated and recruited them.

There's a story in there somewhere. I suppose it is the story of all cults, or of the Nazi party. Charismatic leaders can collect broken souls and bend them to murderous ends.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

And this:

Somebody, somewhere made note that if the 60s began in 1960 with Norman Bates as the mad stabbing killer of Psycho, looking into our eyes through HIS crazy eyes at the end...

...the 60s ended with Charles Manson, the REAL mad stabbing killer, looking into our eyes through HIS crazy eyes.

[–] Renovatio (2990) 7 years ago

I don't think this will be a good movie... I don't see Tarantino being able to handle a real world story, with the nuance that that demands... it'll be another cartoon like his last three or four movies...

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I know that Tarantino draws a lot of dislike these days. For my part, I see some of it as justifiable. There's been an "Emperor Wears No Clothes" vibe lurking around QT's movies these years, as if "he's really not as good as he was when he made Pulp Fiction, is he?"

Probably not. But I'm one of those people who got SO hooked on Pulp Fiction...and then moreso on Jackie Brown...that I've taken the ride ever since.

My analogy: as a kid in the 60s, I was a fan of the Monkees. I bought all their albums -- I think four got released in two years -- along with my friends. Well, eventually, the Monkees fell apart -- their TV show got cancelled, they weren't "hot" -- and friends stopped buying Monkees albums.

Not me. I kept buying Monkees albums til they stopped making them. Which was about three more albums, kaput.

And that's how I am with QT. And Tim Burton, for that matter.

Anyway, my guess is that QT handling the Manson murder years will be like QT handling Nazi Germany or the Slavery South: he will rather ignore the "political big picture" to stage his own little hyper-focused and probably overlong dialogue scenes about...well, about whatever he wants to talk about. And I'll still like listening to those dialogues.

[–] Renovatio (2990) 7 years ago

Yeah... I agree with you, more or less... Especially about how he will probably approach this movie...

I really do like Pulp Fiction, Resevoir Dogs and Jackie Brown... I'd like to see Tarantino film someone elses script... I think it would be more interesting than his last few... Something different...

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I really do like Pulp Fiction, Resevoir Dogs and Jackie Brown...

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It does seem like Tarantino has "two phases" to his career to date:

PHASE ONE

The "LA Crime Trilogy"

Reservoir Dogs
Pulp Fiction
Jackie Brown

PHASE TWO

(After a six year break in which -- given his cult-like fame and riches -- "something happened to him."

Kill Bill 1 and 2
Death Proof
Inglorious Basterds
Django Unchained
The Hateful Eight

That's two Westerns, one WWII era movie, one two-part Kung Fu/Samarai fest and one "grindhouse" feature with Texas locations.

What the hell happened to that man? Still I like a lot of the PHASE TWO movies on their own terms -- QT learned to be an action director and -- with cinematographer Robert Richardson making it happen -- a great visual director.

Not to mention: he DID win the Oscar for the "Django Unchained" script, so at least his Hollywood peers felt "he still has it."

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I'd like to see Tarantino film someone elses script... I think it would be more interesting than his last few... Something different...

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Yes. Keep in mind that he kinda/sorta did that with "Jackie Brown," working from a novel by his friend and mentor, Elmore Leonard, and therefore sticking more to plot and middle-aged character in that movie, which is also by far his least violent film.

QT was also a "guest director" on part of the Clive Owen sequence in Robert Rodriguez's "Sin City."

[–] mattjoes (53) 7 years ago

If I were Cruise, I'd eagerly pursue this; it's exactly what the doctor ordered. Assuming there are two roles, if we just go by star power, DiCaprio has Cruise and Pitt beaten, so that leaves one role available. Pitt vs. Cruise? Pitt still has the advantage. Correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression is that Pitt's recent projects haven't been all that "important", but he still brings in the money and he doesn't have that scientology thing. But Cruise can't be that far behind Pitt; it wouldn't be a largely uneven competition between them. There's a chance for him to get the role if he impresses Tarantino. It could be a return to form for him, a more "actorly" part for him to play.

[–] Otter (24464) 7 years ago

Cruise would be terrible! Not just because he's an extremely limited actor, but because he's notorious for insisting that scripts be altered to his ir his cult's advantage. No way would Tarrantino let an actor pull that. And you're not thinking of him playing Manson are you? He's decades too old, even if he's the right height.

Still, I hope this project dues, because if this story is ever filmed I want it done by someone who can handle psychological subtlety and historical accuracy. Not QT's strong points, I'd rather see it done by the "American Crime Story" people.

PS: There is a Tarrantino board.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Cruise would be terrible! Not just because he's an extremely limited actor, but because he's notorious for insisting that scripts be altered to his ir his cult's advantage. No way would Tarrantino let an actor pull that.

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No, Tarantino would not. QT doesn't even let his actors change a word or two of his scripts. He's very protective of his dialogue and said, "at a minimum when I hire an actor, I expect him or her to say my lines exactly as I wrote them."

QT lost Will Smith for Django over this. Smith wanted to be the guy who kills Leo.

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Still, I hope this project dies, because if this story is ever filmed I want it done by someone who can handle psychological subtlety and historical accuracy. Not QT's strong points, I'd rather see it done by the "American Crime Story" people.

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Aren't they doing it right now? I dunno, I think QT is too committed in public to do this script of his, I think its the next one. He talked for awhile about doing an "Australian Bonnie and Clyde," but this came up first.

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PS: There is a Tarrantino board.

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Indeed, but at that board, the fights are nasty and the flaming and trolling are rough. Younger people. The little secret of this Psycho board is that we oldsters can hide over here with our peers(in the main) and talk about people like QT without getting our heads blown off.

I might add that the same deep love/deep hate folks have for QT today is exactly what Alfred Hitchcock got in his heyday. When a filmmaker develops too worshipful a fan base(and box office success) the knives come out.

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

Apparently, QT's Manson movie has been given a release date of Aug 9, 2019, i.e., 50 years from the date of the Tate/Polanski house murders. The story here:
http://www.vulture.com/2017/12/charles-manson-film-to-debut-on-50th-anniversary-of-murders.html

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Apparently, QT's Manson movie has been given a release date of Aug 9, 2019,

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Which will put it at about 3 and one half years after The Hateful Eight release -- roughly the long period in Hitchcock's career between Torn Curtain and Topaz.

And will also put it at 50 years since the release date of "Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies" -- remember, that's the movie my family was coming out of when we saw the Sharon Tate Murdered headline on the afternoon paper.

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50 years from the date of the Tate/Polanski murders.

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Well, that's a nice gimmick. A reminder to us of a certain age that the "hip counterculture rock years" are now, in terms of human life, a long, long time ago. We got rap now.

I recall in 2010, there were a few articles about the 50th Anniversary of Psycho. That was about the ONLY movie given notice of that nature in 2010. As the 2010's have moved on, there have been similar nods to the 50th Anniversary of The Birds(2013), The Graduate, and Bonnie and Clyde(both 2017).

The Turner Classic Film Festival in Hollywood in 2018(April) will showcase the 50th Anniversary of "Bullitt." I would expect that 2001 (1968) will get similar treatment, and it would be funny: "The 50th Anniversary of 2001 in 2017."

QT will get the "dark nostalgia" vibe of 50 years since Sharon Tate died, but the 50th Anniversary movies for 1969-2019 have quite a few possiblities: Easy Rider, The Wild Bunch, Butch Cassidy, Midnight Cowboy ....

...and Topaz, of course.

[–] mattjoes (53) 7 years ago

Right now I have no strong interest in this film project. I have grown to like Tom Cruise's work over the years and would like to see him work with a really big director again, but even then my post was trying to be merely analytical and speculative about his chances of boarding the film.