Hollywood filmmaker Quentin Tarantino is no longer working on The Movie Critic", which was touted to be his 10th and final film as a director.
Brad Pitt, who won his maiden Oscar trophy for Tarantino's previous film "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood", was in talks to headline the movie, which was reportedly set in southern California during the 1970s.
According to entertainment news outlet Deadline, sources close to Tarantino told the publication that Tarantino had simply changed his mind about making "The Movie Critic".
The filmmaker would now be going back to the drawing board to figure out what that final movie will be, they added.
In an earlier interview with Deadline, Tarantino had teased that The Movie Critic was based on a porno rag journalist, inspired by a real person whom Tarantino read growing up.
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 De Niro's 'Taxi Driver' character) might be if he were a film critic. Think about Travis' diary entries," Tarantino had said.
There were also rumours that in the new movie, Pitt would be reprising his Once Upon a Time in Hollywood character Cliff Booth, who in Tarantino's novelisation of the feature was a big movie buff. However, the filmmaker never confirmed it.
Tarantino, known for cult films like "Pulp Fiction", "Kill Bill: Volume 1" and "Volume 2", "Inglourious Basterds", "Django Unchained" and "The Hateful Eight", has time and again said that he will retire from filmmaking after 10 films.
His ninth feature film was "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood", which also starred Leonardo DiCaprio. The movie was released in 2019.