Quentin Tarantino, one of the biggest names behind the camera in all of Hollywood, is as famous for his directorial masterpieces like Pulp Fiction and Inglourious Basterds as for movies that never saw the light of day as originally envisioned. Recently, Tarantino’s proposed final hurrah, The Movie Critic, joined the caliber of projects that never materialized.
In his formative years, the Reservoir Dogs director had to settle for selling his screenplays to studios and other directors, such as True Romance, which Tony Scott directed. However, this Christian Slater–Patricia Arquette movie — also featuring future Tarantino collaborator Brad Pitt — isn’t even the filmmaker’s most popular runaway couple tale; an honor that belongs to Natural Born Killers, albeit for all the wrong reasons, which even led Tarantino, who originally conceived it, to disown the movie.
A ruthless black comedy, Natural Born Killers stars Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis as lovers turned murderers whose spree captures the media’s attention, feeding violence to audiences for higher viewership. Directed by Oliver Stone, who replaced Tarantino thanks to his successes with Platoon, JFK, and the Tom Cruise-led Born on the Fourth of July, it also features Robert Downey Jr. and Gary Oldman.
The Hateful Eight director’s engagement with Natural Born Killers was initially significant, but creative disagreements led to major revisions of his script, limiting him to a “story by” credit. Tarantino openly criticized the final product, saying, “I hate that f—ing movie. If you like my stuff, don’t watch that movie.” However, his involvement with Natural Born Killers didn’t end amicably. When he tried to replicate his old method of republishing screenplays as books, Warner Bros. sent him a legal notice claiming he no longer retained those rights, though Tarantino ultimately prevailed.
Besides Tarantino’s involvement or the lack thereof, Natural Born Killers drew viewers, albeit some with an unhealthy obsession with violence, paving the way for a controversial legacy. The film sparked debates over its portrayal of violence, facing censorship and bans in multiple markets. However, none of these fates were as disheartening as its linkage to real-life mass shootings, such as the massacres at Heath and Columbine high schools, both of which resulted in 21 casualties.
With Natural Born Killers having secured its questionable reputation in cinema, the Kill Bill filmmaker could never truly dissociate from it. On a positive note, his career was spared from taking a massive toll, thanks to what else transpired in 1994 alongside the marketing of Natural Born Killers. As fate would have it, Tarantino, along with co-writer Roger Avery, soon emerged victorious at the Academy Awards for penning Pulp Fiction, an award he would reclaim later for Django Unchained.
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