Tarantino's Next Project: Two Books, Including a 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood' Novel

If you're finding yourself in that horribly uncomfortable place between having watched Tarantino's latest film and waiting for the release of his next movie, good ol' QT might have a few tricks up his sleeve to keep all you die-hard fans satiated.

The director is moving his resume from filmmaker to author for a beat, signing a two-book deal with Harper, the HarperCollins imprint, that will provide cinephiles and Tarantino lovers plenty of fodder until his (supposedly) 10th and final film gets made.

The Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Novel

First, we'll travel back to the 1960s for a work of fiction, the novelization of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. 

The Once Upon A Time In Hollywood novel will dig deep into the lives of Tarantino’s two protagonists, TV actor Rick Dalton and his stunt double Cliff Booth, and the narrative will go both forward and backward in time. That means we will see Rick at the highest highs of his career, and might even get more information on Cliff's wife. 

We know Tarantino did a ton of research for this film, much of which didn't make it into the final cut. It will be nice to see his dedication to the craft and the world shine through. 

“In the seventies movie novelizations were the first adult books I grew up reading,” Tarantino said in a statement. “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 my contribution to this often marginalized, yet beloved sub-genre in literature. I’m also thrilled to further explore my characters and their world in a literary endeavor that can (hopefully) sit alongside its cinematic counterpart.”

Cinema Speculation

For his second literary offering, it looks like Tarantino will be following in the footsteps of one of his biggest heroes, the "Kerouac" of film criticism—Pauline Kael. Cinema Speculation, a nonfiction film criticism book, is described by the publisher as a “deep dive into the movies of the 1970’s, a rich mix of essays, reviews, personal writing, and tantalizing 'what if’s,' from one of cinema’s most celebrated filmmakers, and its most devoted fan.”

Sounds like a blast! 

Vice President and Executive Editor Noah Eaker, who acquired North American rights from Tarantino’s WME reps, said in a statement, “Quentin Tarantino’s literary talents have been in plain sight since his first scripts, but to see how skillfully he endows his characters with life on the page and how he constantly takes a reader by surprise, even one who knows the movie by heart, is to see a master storyteller trying on a new form and making it his own.”

This seems like two very fun things for the director to work on while he figures out what's next on his directing slate. 

Will you be buying them? Let me know what you think in the comments.