Quentin Tarantino Has No Time for Ryan Reynolds’ Netflix Blockbusters: ‘Those Movies Don’t Exist in the Zeitgeist’

Christian Zilko
·2 min read
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Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming 10th film “The Movie Critic” is going to be a bittersweet event for cinephiles. A new Tarantino movie is always cause to celebrate, but the project will be his last feature film before his long-planned retirement. While Tarantino has remained open to working in other mediums like television and theatre, he appears more confident than ever that he’s walking away from movies at the right time.

Speaking to Deadline at the Cannes Film Festival, Tarantino explained that the erosion of theatrical releases for new movies has solidified his belief that it’s time to retire.

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“It’s just time to go out. I like the idea of going out on top,” Tarantino said. “I like the idea of giving it my all for 30 years and then saying, ‘OK, that’s enough.’ And I don’t like working to diminishing returns. And I mean, now is a good time because I mean, what even is a motion picture anyway anymore? Is it just something that they show on Apple? That would be diminishing returns.”

Tarantino teased that “The Movie Critic” will likely be made at Sony (who also partnered with Tarantino on “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”) due to his appreciation for the studio’s commitment to theatrical releases.

“I’m probably going to be doing the movie with Sony because they’re the last game in town that is just absolutely, utterly, committed to the theatrical experience,” he said. “It’s not about feeding their streaming network. They are committed to theatrical experience. They judge success by asses on seats. And they judge success by the movies entering the zeitgeist, not just making a big expensive movie and then putting it on your streaming platform. No one even knows it’s there.”

Tarantino offered a more specific example of this phenomenon, calling out Netflix for making expensive blockbusters such as the Ryan Reynolds vehicles “Red Notice” and “The Adam Project” that made no real cultural impact after being unceremoniously released on the streaming service.

“I mean, and I’m not picking on anybody, but apparently for Netflix, Ryan Reynolds has made $50 million on this movie and $50 million on that movie and $50 million on the next movie for them,” he said. “I don’t know what any of those movies are. I’ve never seen them. Have you? I haven’t ever talked to Ryan Reynolds’ agent, but his agent is like, ‘Well, it cost $50 million.’ Well, good for him that he’s making so much money. But those movies don’t exist in the zeitgeist. It’s almost like they don’t even exist.”

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