Quentin Tarantino Talks About Plans for Book, Play, TV Series and That 10th Movie

By Stewart Clarke

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Quentin Tarantino has his next several months mapped out. He plans to finish writing a book, do a play, work on a TV series and then figure out what his 10th movie will be, the writer-director told a packed audience at a BAFTA event in London on Wednesday night.

Without going into detail, Tarantino said that there had been a gap between finishing the writing of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” and production of the movie – an evidently fruitful period in terms of new work.

“Normally when I finish a script we pretty much go right into production on it,” Tarantino said. “When I finished ‘Hollywood,’ I wasn’t ready to start. Part of the reason I wasn’t ready to start it was because I was just really plugged into writing at that point.

“So I finished ‘,’ finished that script, put it aside, and then I wrote a play. And then I wrote a five-episode TV series. And right now I’m writing a book and I’m hoping that I’ll be finished in three months. So the idea will be hopefully by March maybe I’ll be finished with the book – and then, theoretically, maybe I’ll do the play, and then theoretically I’ll do the TV show, and then by that point I’ll be thinking maybe what I’ll do for the 10th movie.”

Tarantino had previously told Deadline about a writing a fictional TV show, “Bounty Law,” for the “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” character Rick Dalton. Unfortunately for the Tarantino fans packed into the Odeon Luxe in London’s Leicester Square on Wednesday evening, he did not dish any more on the aforementioned projects before leaving the stage to cheers and applause.

During the wide-ranging “: A Life in Pictures” event, he did talk about the notion of doing both “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” and “Inglourious Basterds” as miniseries. “I could easily have written a five-hour version of ‘Hollywood’ and done it as a five-hour miniseries,” he said. “I definitely had that much handwritten material – and we shot almost enough to do at least a four-hour version.”

“” was being teed up as a six-hour series, but a dinner with French director Luc Besson put paid to that plan. Adopting an exaggerated French accent, Tarantino said Besson told him that “you are one of the few people that makes movies that makes me want to leave the house to go see the movies and now you are telling me I have to wait five years before I get to do it again.” He said he could not un-hear those words, and so he made “Inglourious Basterds” a feature film.

As for television, Tarantino said that “the way people are doing series now, it’s an idea that’s been in my head since the ’90s…and especially something that would all be written by me and all directed by me.” He added: “I don’t know if I really want to spend nine months doing something like that, though. But I do have an idea for a series, but it wouldn’t be quite that epic a thing.”

With the book, play and series to get to first, the 10th movie will have to wait, but it will happen. “There will be a 10th one, yes,” Tarantino said. “I have no idea what it’s going to be. It’s going to be a little bit down the line.”