California is making it rain for Quentin Tarantino as the acclaimed director prepares to set up shop for his final film, The Movie Critic, in the Golden State. The state granted $20,213,000 in California tax credits for Tarantino’s next feature. The hotly-anticipated film is one of 16 films conditionally approved for $7.8 million in tax incentives by the California Film Commission. Casting rumors for the film are currently making the rounds, creating an air of mystery around the legendary director’s next effort.
“I love shooting in California,” Tarantino said on Friday.
“I started directing movies here and it is only fitting that I shoot my final motion picture in the cinema capital of the world,” Tarantino said about rolling cameras in the state that helped launch his storied career. “There is nothing like shooting in my hometown; the crews are the best I’ve ever worked with, and the locations are amazing. The producers and I are thrilled to be making #10 in Los Angeles.”
Californian representatives love it when filmmakers like Tarantino choose to shoot in the state. Seeing the majesty of California on the silver screen is a boon for tourism, and Tarantino draws a varied and dedicated crowd. His productions also create jobs in the area, boosting the economy and work totals for quarterly reviews. Unfortunately, the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes continue to gum up the gears for industry workers, with many fighting for fair wages and representation daily. Some might not view California dolling out cash incentives in the best light, even if the payouts only happen for a few months.
“While production is now drastically reduced, today’s news about projects in our tax credit program signals there will be a much-welcome surge in California-based production once the strikes are resolved,” CFC Executive Director Colleen Bell said on Friday, hoping for a swift resolution to the ongoing dispute.
During an interview with Baz Bamigboye for Deadline, Tarantino revealed his next film takes inspiration from an unspecified man who wrote reviews for “a porno rag.”
Tarantino told Bamigboye that The Movie Critic is set in 1977 California and “is based on a guy who really lived, but was never really famous, and he used to write movie reviews for a porno rag.” Tarantino became aware of these reviews when he was a teenager and had a job loading porn magazines into a vending machine. “All the other stuff was too skanky to read but then there was this porno rag that had a really interesting movie page. He wrote about mainstream movies and he was the second-string critic. I think he was a very good critic. He was as cynical as hell. His reviews were a cross between early Howard Stern and what Travis Bickle (Robert DeNiro’s character in Taxi Driver) might be if he were a film critic.
Think about Travis’s diary entries. But the porno rag critic was very, very funny. He was very rude, you know. He cursed. He used racial slurs. But his shit was really funny. He was as rude as hell. He wrote like he was 55 but he was only in his early to mid-30s. He died in his late thirties. It wasn’t clear for a while but now I’ve done some more research and I think it was it was complications due to alcoholism.” In the film, the “porno rag” the character writes for will be called The Popstar Pages.
As the project develops, we’ll bring you more details about Tarantino’s final film.