Talking with Deadline’s Baz Bamigboye at the Carlton Hotel in Cannes, Quentin Tarantino opened up about the plot of his upcoming 10th film, as well as revealed the title of the secret screening he’s presenting at the festival.
About his upcoming film The Movie Critic, Tarantino shared new details, including that it will be set in 1977 and “based on a guy who really lived, but was never really famous, and he used to write movie reviews for a porno rag… He wrote about mainstream movies and he was the second-string critic. I think he was a very good critic. He was as cynical as hell. His reviews were a cross between early Howard Stern and what Travis Bickle might be if he were a film critic… He wrote like he was 55 but he was only in his early to mid-30s. He died in his late thirties. It wasn’t clear for a while but now I’ve done some more research and I think it was it was complications due to alcoholism.”
The writer-director plans to enter “pre-pre production” in June and is looking for his lead actor, saying “I haven’t decided yet but it’s going to be somebody in the 35 year-old ball park. It’ll definitely be a new leading man for me.”
About the surprise screening he has planned at the festival, Tarantino will be presenting the Cannes debut of a film he’s long championed: “We’ll be screening a 35mm print of Rolling Thunder. And so the idea being that I’m responsible for bringing Rolling Thunder to Cannes is a very, very cool thing.”