National Post (National Edition)
Tarantino signs book deal
Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino is going to be a novelist. The director has just signed a two-book deal with HarperCollins publishers. The first, a work of fiction based on his latest movie, Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood, is due out next summer.
He'll follow that up with Cinema Speculation, a non-fiction book the publisher describes as “a rich mix of essays, reviews, personal writing and tantalizing `what ifs' from one of cinema's most celebrated filmmakers.”
The film Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood tells the story of TV actor Rick Dalton and his stunt double Cliff Booth, played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, respectively, and set in 1969 around the time of Sharon Tate's murder. It won two Oscars, including for Pitt's supporting role. The novel will expand on the lives of the protagonists both forward and backward from that time.
“In the '70s, movie novelizations were the first adult books I grew up reading,” Tarantino said in making the announcement. “And to this day I have a tremendous amount of affection for the genre. So as a movie-novelization aficionado, I'm proud to announce Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood as my contribution to this often marginalized, yet beloved sub-genre in literature.”
Tarantino had previously said he would direct several episodes of Bounty Law, the fictional TV western in which Dalton starred as Jake Cahill. But since his announcement of that plan in January and the subsequent pandemic there's been little news on the project. The book deal seems like more of a sure thing.