Said to tell “the further adventures of Cliff Booth,” David Fincher’s sequel to Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is set eight years after that film’s events.
In early April, word began to circulate that David Fincher is to direct a sequel to Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 film, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. The script is by Tarantino himself, but for the first time in decades, he’s leaving the filmmaking process to someone else. It was said that Brad Pitt was to star, and that Fincher will begin shooting the untitled follow-up this July.
Since then, a few more potential details have emerged. Sean Fennessey, the co-host of The Big Picture Podcast, appears to have some connections to Tarantino himself, and he’s heard one or two plot points over the grapevine.
Appearing to confirm earlier reports, Brad Pitt will indeed be reprising his role as the stuntman (and possible murderer…) Cliff Booth, and what Tarantino has written will tell the “further adventures” of that character.
“This will be like the further adventures of Cliff Booth, is my understanding of it,” Fennessey said, as reported by World Of Reel. “The only other important information that I’ve learned, that I think is confirmed, is that the movie takes place in 1977, which is roughly eight years after the events of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. So a different time in Cliff Booth’s life.”
This also suggests that what David Fincher’s going to shoot could be a script Tarantino spoke about in 2023. Back then, he said he was working on a screenplay called The Movie Critic, which was partly inspired by his non-fiction book, Cinema Speculation, published the year before. During the process of writing, Tarantino said the story’s subject morphed from the fictionalised life of an obscure movie journalist to that of Cliff Booth in his later years. The filmmaker said at the time its story takes place in 1977, which lines up neatly with Fennessey’s gossip.
Read more: Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction and the ‘Tarantinomania’ of 1994
There could be a reason why Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time… sequel is set in such a specific year. One of his favourite films was released that year – Rolling Thunder, directed by John Flynn and initially written by Paul Schrader (it was later rewritten by Heywood Gould). It’s previously been said that Tarantino had sought permission to shoot the script’s original, more violent ending. Given Tarantino’s tendency to rewrite history in his movies, previous reports that his story would feature ‘movie within a movie’ segments, it’s just possible that Cliff Booth will serve as a stunt double for William Devane, Rolling Thunder’s star.
Of course, none of this has been officially confirmed as yet, but given the sheer number of outlets reporting on Fincher and Tarantino’s unexpected collaboration, there does appear to be substance to it. If the film is indeed going into production this July, we should hear something more concrete from Netflix (with whom Fincher’s contracted) in the coming months.
