Quentin Tarantino was ‘sorry to screw up Brad Pitt’ by giving up on Cliff Booth

The filmmaker felt guilty for a long time about abandoning the sequel to Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, before David Fincher offered to take over the project.

Quentin Tarantino has abandoned Cliff Booth.

And he blames himself. The character played by Brad Pitt in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood will still make a comeback in The New Misadventures of Cliff Booththis time under the direction of David Fincher. But the change of director was not necessarily planned at the start. And Tarantino admits to having a guilty conscience in abandoning the project. In a meeting between the two filmmakers organized by Empire, he says:

“It was Brad who I felt like I was really letting down by deciding not to do it. I blamed myself for crashing it...”

Brad Pitt, who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Cliff Booth, was indeed very enthusiastic at the idea of ​​finding the stuntman who had become a handyman in Hollywood. That’s when David Fincher entered the dance. Already director of Brad Pitt in Seven, Fight Club And The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttonthe filmmaker was approached by his favorite actor, who suggested that he read Tarantino’s script. Fincher accepted, on condition of obtaining authorization from his colleague. QT’s reaction was radical:

“I was totally shocked when Brad suggested this to me! I was like, ‘Really? Do you think David Fincher would be interested? Fuck, yes! Make him read!“

David Fincher was immediately attracted to the project.

But Tarantino still feared derailing this collaboration:

“The first few times we talked, I was like a man trying to convince a beautiful woman to sleep with him. I did everything not to say anything that could ruin the situation…“

The director of pulp Fiction was all the more happy to see a filmmaker of Fincher’s caliber take on his script as he saw it as a form of recognition of his writing work: “I’ve gained a lot of respect as a screenwriter, but I still feel like people see me as a director who just writes his own films. The fact that a director of David’s caliber would dedicate a year and a half of his life to adapting my material was amazing. It spoke volumes about what he had found on the page.”

The New Misadventures of Cliff Booth will jump back in time to 1977. Cliff will act as a handyman responsible for solving the problems of the Hollywood studios. Around Brad Pitt, we will notably find Elizabeth Debicki, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Carla Gugino, Scott Caan and Timothy Olyphant.

David Fincher, for his part, is delighted to find Pitt in a role he knows better than anyone:

“Brad is so invested in this project! What’s strangest and most interesting to me is working with someone who knows his character better than I could ever know him. Sometimes you have to resist it. I knew the new story elements, but Brad knew who this guy really was. So he could resist the storm of questions: “And that? And that?” He answered me: “No, no, no. I’m in control.“

The New Misadventures of Cliff Booth will be released on Netflix on December 23, 2026 in France.