Quentin Tarantino Has No Time For Ryan Reynolds’ Netflix Blockbusters: ‘Those Movies Don’t Exist In The Zeitgeist’
Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming tenth film “The Movie Critic” will be a bittersweet event for cinephiles. While a new Tarantino film is always cause for celebration, the project will be his last feature film before his long-scheduled retirement. While Tarantino has remained open to working in other mediums such as television and theatre, he seems more confident than ever to step away from films when the time is right.
Talking with Expiration at the Cannes Film Festival, Tarantino explained that the erosion of theatrical releases for new films has reinforced his belief that it’s time to retire.
“It’s just time to get out. I like the idea of winning,” Tarantino said. “I like the idea of giving it your all for 30 years and then saying, ‘OK, that’s enough.’ And I don’t like working with diminishing returns. And I mean, now’s a good time because I mean, what’s a movie anymore anyway? Is that just something they show at Apple? That would be diminishing returns.”
Tarantino teases that “The Movie Critic” will likely be made by Sony (which also collaborated with Tarantino on “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”) due to his appreciation of the studio’s commitment to theatrical releases.
“I’ll probably do the movie with Sony because they’re the last game in town that’s absolutely, totally, committed to the cinematic experience,” he said. “It’s not about powering their streaming network. They are engaged in theatrical experience. They judge success by the donkeys on the seats. And they judge success by movies that get into the zeitgeist, not just making a big, expensive movie and then putting it on your streaming platform. No one even knows it’s there.
Tarantino offered a more specific example of this phenomenon, calling out Netflix for making expensive blockbusters like Ryan Reynolds’ vehicles “Red Notice” and “The Adam Project” that failed to make a real cultural impact after being released without much ceremonies on the streaming service.
“I mean, and I don’t blame anyone, but apparently for Netflix, Ryan Reynolds made $50 million on this movie and $50 million on that movie and $50 million on the next movie for them,” she said. “I don’t know what those movies are. I’ve never seen them. You have? I never spoke to Ryan Reynolds’ agent, but his agent said, “Well, it cost $50 million.” Well, it’s good for him that he’s making so much money. But those movies don’t exist in the zeitgeist. It’s almost as if they don’t even exist.”