“We were just too cool for this world”: cult director Quentin Tarantino is grateful for his biggest flop! – Cinema news

If you follow his count, Quentin Tarantino has directed nine films so far – and his CV is packed full of success stories. However, Tarantino had to accept a plant-based economic setback: In 2007, he and his friend and fellow director Robert Rodriguez brought the genre experiment “Grindhouse” to the cinema.

Behind it was a double feature of Rodriguez's action-packed and comedic horror homage “Planet Terror” and Tarantino's “Death Proof”, a mix of slasher tribute and a penchant for car stunt thrillers. The declaration of love from a pulp cinema, drunk with nerdy passion and offering a wild, daring program, was a massive loss at the US box office.

But although “Death Proof” represents a rare setback in Tarantino’s career, the filmmaker did not consider it a stain – but as the source of valuable lessons. Nevertheless, it is still worth watching “Death Proof” (again) – for example with an Amazon Prime Video subscription:

“Death Proof” on Prime Video*

“Death Proof”: Too specific for the masses?

In US cinemas, the double pack of “Death Proof” and “Planet Terror” was a over 190 minutes long eventBut the mass audience was not ready for such a A powerful dose of violence, horror, frivolity and stagingaimed at cinema nostalgics: With a budget of around $60 million, “Grindhouse” generated only $25.4 million. In many other countries, “Death Proof” and “Planet Terror” were subsequently released as individual films – which did not result in any notable success.

Tarantino can easily explain why this project was so unpopular. In conversation with the British film magazine Rich he explained: “Robert and I just thought that people would be more familiar with the history of double features and exploitation films – well, they're not!” Not at all!” According to Tarantino, this led to the audience not being able to appreciate “Grindhouse”:

“People had no fucking idea what they were looking at. What we created – it meant nothing to them! “We were just too cool for this world,” Tarantino analyzed the “Grindhouse” flop with a humorous price tag. Instead of being upset about it, Tarantino tried to learn from this economic debacle. He explained this to the industry blog vulture: “I learned a valuable lesson thanks to 'Grindhouse'.” He continues:

“Robert Rodriguez and I were used to going our own way – our own and unique way. And the audience followed us.” Through “Grindhouse,” Tarantino learned where the limits are of where the audience can be led without being prepared. He doesn't regret that it happened – but he does regret how surprising it was for him: “It would have been nicer if it hadn't come as such a surprise to us that people are so uninterested.”

From flop to a new triumph

“Grindhouse” may have brought Tarantino back down to earth, but it is also thanks to this experiment that Tarantino has remained true to his ideas and style to this day, instead of giving himself over to commissioned work and franchise projects.

In the 1990s, Tarantino briefly considered making a movie about the Marvel hero Luke Cage, and a “Silver Surfer” film and an adaptation of the DC comic “Green Lantern” were also discussed. Such projects have now clearly lost their appeal for Tarantino – which is also due to the failure of “Grindhouse”:

As soon as it was clear that the pulp homage would not recoup its costs on the big screen, Tarantino said he was literally inundated with offers for commissioned work.

“My absolute hero”: Quentin Tarantino really wanted to direct a Marvel film!

“I started getting really aggressive offers for big, expensive Hollywood projects. And – I understand where they touched her. “They think that I have become insecure and want to get back into the saddle with a sure thing,” Slash film the Oscar winner about the abundance of remakes, reboots, comic book adaptations and sequels that were offered to him after the “Grindhouse” failure.

“My self-confidence was also a bit dented. “Like after a breakup that she initiated while you were caught off guard”the pop culture portal quoted Tarantino as saying. But when he spoke to filmmaker friends on the phone, including Tony Scott and Steven Spielberg, his perspective changed: They showed him that up until then he had been enjoying a streak of success with films that he made on his own initiative.

He should therefore see “Grindhouse” as the reward for coming out of this failure as a more mature man and then continuing on his path to enjoy the next success more than ever. Advocacy that bore fruit: “Instead of taking on any job or writing anything new, I went back to 'Inglourious Basterds' – an old idea of ​​mine that I knew was good. I said to myself: 'Stop dawdling – finally crack this nut!'”

As is well known, Tarantino managed to crack this nut: The multilingual film about the Second World War, which Tarantino had been putting off for years, became his glorious comeback after “Grindhouse” and was a celebrated, surprise worldwide success. It is even among the ten best war films of all time – selected by the FILMSTARTS community. We will tell you exactly where it ranks in the following article:

4.52 out of 5 stars! This is the best war film of all time – according to German viewers

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