Quentin Tarantino on movie streaming: “It’s almost like they don’t even exist”

Quentin Tarantino attends the "Elemental" screening and closing ceremony red carpet during the 76th annual Cannes film festival at Palais des Festivals on May 27, 2023 in Cannes, France. Credit: Andreas Rentz / GETTY

Quentin Tarantino has shared his thoughts on movie streaming saying that it’s almost as if they do not exist in the zeitgeist.

In an interview with Deadline, the famed director discussed his “retirement” from filmography, and reflected on a statement he made in 2009 about him being out of the movie business at age 60.

Here, he shared that he has always believed that films were made for cinematic release and that, because of streaming, the motion picture doesn’t exist anymore.

“I like the idea of giving it my all for 30 years and then saying, ‘OK, that’s enough.’ And I don’t like working to diminishing returns. And I mean, now is a good time because I mean, what even is a motion picture anyway anymore? Is it just something that they show on Apple? That would be diminishing returns,” he said.

Quentin Tarantino waves as he arrives for the Closing Ceremony and the screening of the film "Elemental" during the 76th edition of the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southern France, on May 27, 2023. Credit: LOIC VENANCE/ GETTY
Quentin Tarantino during the 76th edition of the Cannes Film Festival. Credit: LOIC VENANCE/ GETTY

He continued: “I mean, and I’m not picking on anybody, but apparently for Netflix, Ryan Reynolds has made $50 million on this movie and $50 million on that movie and $50 million on the next movie for them. I don’t know what any of those movies are. I’ve never seen them. Have you?”

The director also discussed his upcoming final film, The Movie Critic, and discussed how he will be most likely doing it with Sony. Here he said that: “they’re the last game in town that is just absolutely, utterly, committed to the theatrical experience.”

“It’s not about feeding their streaming network. They are committed to theatrical experience. They judge success by asses on seats. And they judge success by the movies entering the zeitgeist, not just making a big expensive movie and then putting it on your streaming platform. No one even knows it’s there,” he added.

Quenin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino. Credit: Getty Images

The Movie Critic – which will be set in 1977 Southern California – will be based on a real-life movie critic for a pornographic magazine, which the director used to read when he was growing up and working as a vending machine re-stocker.

He recently shared that the upcoming project will go into “pre-pre-production” this June, and that he’s currently looking for an actor around the age of 35 to play the lead.

Last week, Tarantino killed off Rick Dalton, the fictional character played by Leonardo DiCaprio in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.

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