Having hinted at a third instalment ever since the release of parts One and Two, Quentin Tarantino seems to have finally laid his beloved genre mash-up, Kill Bill, to rest by pouring cold water over a potential Kill Bill 3. In an interview with The Independent, the auteur himself spoke briefly about his plans for the future, which may involve experimenting with the horror genre.
“There are no genres I absolutely want to do anymore, like ticking boxes: ‘This, done’. I don’t think about Kill Bill 3 that much, as…we already visited them. If there was something I would like to work on again, it would be Honshu’s movies, maybe. Or a horror movie, perhaps.”
And so, the wires are alight with anticipation for a Quentin Tarantino horror movie – which really highlights the irony that cloaks this director’s body of work. While he continues to concoct celebrations of beloved genres, he is a genre unto himself – paying homage to historical artistic influences, imbued with his own, signature, dialogue-heavy style. The genre-fan created an entirely new category of film which, ultimately, may be his greatest filmmaking legacy –whichever project he chooses next.
As a fan of the genre movie, he has addressed many of cinematic categories with his own unique style and aesthetic over the course of his award-winning career as a director. His legendary breakthrough film, Reservoir Dogs, was a heist movie; Pulp Fiction was a neo-noir crime caper; while Jackie Brown paid homage to the blaxploitation films of the 1970s. The Kill Bill films were a heady, revenge-cocktail of Japanese martial arts films, spaghetti westerns and Italian horror, and Death Proof was a nod to the grindhouse theatres that exhibited action, horror and exploitation B movies. Inglorious Basterds was his long-awaited war film, and Django Unchained was his deep-south set western – “a southern”, as he called it.
With a highly stylised approach drawn from decades of immersion in the art of film, a Tarantino project is guaranteed to take very clear and specific influences and combine them to produce something new and original. This is why speculation about his next film is always dialled up to fever pitch – whatever he chooses, we know it will be interesting. So, when he recently spoke to The Independent about his immediate professional future, he was inevitably asked the question that is on everyone’s lips when Tarantino comes to mind – what’s next? While he has previously hinted at another take on the western genre, in addition to more Kill Bill, it seems Tarantino may be heading in an entirely new direction.
Tell us, do you think Tarantino will ever revisit the story of The Bride with Kill Bill 3? Or would you rather the director focus on other projects? Let us know below.