Quentin Tarantino Admits He Let Brad Pitt Down By Not Directing His Next Movie

Published Nov 4, 2026, 11:05 AM EST

Ryan Northrup is a Senior Staff Writer on ScreenRant's Movie & TV News team, where he has authored nearly 5,000 articles, including features and reviews. A graduate of McMaster University, Ryan began his career in public relations before attending Vancouver Film School. There, he built lasting industry connections and optioned a feature film screenplay.

Quentin Tarantino addresses Brad Pitt's feelings regarding his decision to not direct The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth.

Serving as a loose sequel to Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019), the upcoming Netflix film sees Pitt returning as stuntman Cliff Booth, this time working as a fixer in 1970s Hollywood. Tarantino, who has long held that he will direct only one more movie, wrote the script for the follow-up, but David Fincher has taken over as director.

In a new joint interview with Empire, Tarantino is asked about how his experience only writing The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth has made him feel about life after directing. The filmmaker reveals that he initially felt that he had let Pitt down by opting not to make the sequel his final directorial outing, but that he was thrilled when Fincher agreed to come aboard. Check out Tarantino's comment below:

Well… That’s a… That’s a heavy question. It’s so heavy, I don’t know if I have an answer for it, frankly. I mean, one of the things that made this all work was my excitement over David doing my material. I’ve gotten a lot of respect as a screenwriter, but I still feel that people think that I’m a director who just writes shit for himself. The fact that a director of David’s calibre would spend a year-and-a-half of his life doing my material was, I thought, wonderful. It said a lot about what was on the page. The other aspect was Brad playing this character. He was the one I felt I was really letting down when I didn’t do it. I felt bad about that, and the fact he took it to his guy and his guy responded to it… That was fantastic.

Tarantino has not directed a film in seven years. Several years ago, it was looking like a film called The Movie Critic would be his final movie as a director, but the filmmaker ended up pivoting away from that project. Now, after penning The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth, he is set to put on his first-ever stage play, The Popinjay Cavalier, which opens on the West End next March.

There's still no word yet on what Tarantino's final directorial outing will be, but The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth is looking like an interesting mix of two different voices. Tarantino has a signature writing style, especially with his dialogue, but trailers for the sequel have revealed drastically different visuals than Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.

For Fincher, the upcoming movie marks his follow-up to The Killer, a 2023 Netflix thriller starring Michael Fassbender. The director has been working exclusively at Netflix since making a deal with the streamer in 2020, but that contract is set to expire next year and is not expected to be renewed.

The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth is scheduled to play for two weeks in IMAX starting November 25, but isn't playing widely in theaters beyond that. Fincher leaving Netflix, however, could result in more proper theatrical releases for his future movies.

Also starring Elizabeth Debicki, Timothy Olyphant, Carla Gugino, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Holt McCallany, and Peter Weller, among others, The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth remains somewhat mysterious in terms of how it will compare to Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, which also benefited from the star power of Leonardo DiCaprio and Margot Robbie. Tarantino, though, is evidently happy that Fincher elected to bring his script to life.

Cast

• 

  Cliff Booth

• 

  Timothy Olyphant

  Jim Stacy

• 

  Scott Caan

• 

  Barry Livingston