Tom Cruise to appear in Quentin Tarantino's 'The Movie Critic'
A dream Hollywood collaboration is likely to be on the cards! Buzz is building around the possibility of Tom Cruise making a cameo in filmmaker Quentin Tarantino's supposed final film, The Movie Critic, reported journalist Jeff Sneider. While nothing has been finalized yet, the Jerry Maguire star is reportedly moving his jam-packed calendar to allot dates to Tarantino. Meanwhile, Cruise will remain occupied with the shooting of Mission: Impossible 8 for the better part of 2024, according to reports.
Plot and inspiration for the film
Set in 1970s southern California, TMC will follow a cynical, funny, and rude male film reviewer. Tarantino earlier told Deadline, "[It is] based on a guy who really lived, but was never really famous, and he used to write movie reviews for a porno rag. He wrote about mainstream movies, and he was the second-string critic... He was a very good critic." Tarantino's frequent collaborator Brad Pitt is attached to the project, though the details about his role are unknown.
Tarantino compared lead character to 'Taxi Driver's Travis Bickle
Shedding light on the protagonist, Tarantino earlier said, "[The critic] was as cynical as hell. His reviews were a cross between early Howard Stern (media personality) and what Travis Bickle [from 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 sh*t was really funny. He was as rude as hell."
Cruise, Tarantino almost came together for this movie
The Pulp Fiction director wanted to cast Cruise in the role of Cliff Booth in his acclaimed Once Upon a Time in...Hollywood (2019), but alas, the collaboration wasn't meant to be. Talking about collaborating with Cruise, Tarantino previously revealed, "We talked about it... He's a great guy, and we really hit it off. [A collaboration] could happen on something else." Booth was eventually essayed by Pitt, who had earlier worked with Tarantino on Inglourious Basterds (2009).
Why 'The Movie Critic' is Tarantino's last film
Tarantino has always been open about his plan to call it a day after directing 10 movies. He once told The Hollywood Reporter, "If you think about the idea of all the movies telling one story and each film is like a train boxcar connected to each other, this one would sort of be the big show-stopping climax of it all." "And I could imagine that the 10th one would be a little more epilogue-y," he added.