Cliff Booth’s Back, Baby: What Hollywood’s Toughest Stuntman Hides Behind That Devil-May-Care Smile Might Just Blow Your Zodiac-Obsessed Mind!
Added on August 9, 2025 inEntertainment News Cards, Movie News Cards
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So, here we are at the crossroads of Hollywood magic and celestial mischief—Quentin Tarantino, the maestro with a flair for the dramatic, decided to hang up his director’s chair after ten films. We all thought his grand finale would be The Movie Critic, reuniting Brad Pitt with his iconic stuntman Cliff Booth from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. But just like Mercury retrograde throwing a wrench in your carefully planned day, Tarantino scrapped the project—cue collective gasps! Now, in a twist worthy of a Tarantino plot, Brad Pitt has roped in none other than David Fincher to direct this cinematic phoenix rising from the ashes, potentially retitled The Continuing Adventures of Cliff Booth. Picture this: 1977 California, a porno rag movie critic who’s as sharp-tongued as a Scorpio on a bad day, and a Hollywood fixer navigating glitzy chaos eight years after we last saw him. Intrigued yet? Let’s dive into everything we know about this rollercoaster of a project that promises to blend nostalgia, grit, and a sprinkle of dark humor—because if Hollywood’s a horoscope, this film’s definitely in retrograde. LEARN MORE
Quentin Tarantino has decided that he’s only going to direct ten feature films, then retire from that part of his career. For a full year, we were hearing that his tenth and final film was going to be something called The Movie Critic, which would reunite him with Brad Pitt, reprising the role of stuntman Cliff Booth from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. But then, Tarantino decided to scrap the project. Given that Pitt won an Oscar for playing Cliff Booth, he was understandably disappointed that the movie wouldn’t be happening – and, in a shocking turn of events, he got Tarantino to agree to let another director bring the script for The Movie Critic to the screen! Pitt has reteamed with director David Fincher for the film, which may or may not be called The Continuing Adventures of Cliff Booth now – and below, we have put together a list of Everything We Know About The Continuing Adventures of Cliff Booth!
Of course, to gather all the information on this project, we have to go back to the days when Tarantino was talking about making The Movie Critic as his final film. He was working on the script throughout 2023, and revealed that the story would be set in 1977 California. Speaking with Baz Bamigboye of Deadline, he said the story was “based on a guy who really lived, but was never really famous, and he used to write movie reviews for a porno rag.” Tarantino became aware of these reviews when he was a teenager and had a job that involved loading porn magazines into a vending machine. “All the other stuff was too skanky to read but then there was this porno rag that had a really interesting movie page. He wrote about mainstream movies and he was the second-string critic. I think he was a very good critic. He was as cynical as hell. His reviews were a cross between early Howard Stern and what Travis Bickle [Robert DeNiro’s character in 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 shit was really funny. He was as rude as hell. He wrote like he was 55 but he was only in his early to mid-30s. He died in his late thirties. It wasn’t clear for a while but now I’ve done some more research and I think it was it was complications due to alcoholism.” In the film, the “porno rag” the character writes for would be called The Popstar Pages.
Tarantino was looking to cast an actor who was around 35 years old as the movie critic (who may have been named Jim Sheldon), and there were rumors that Paul Walter Hauser and comedian Shane Gillis were in the running. We never heard details on any other characters, but David Krumholtz and Olivia Wilde were apparently up for roles, and Wilde did meet with Tarantino in person to discuss the project. There were rumors that Tom Cruise, who had been in the conversation for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, might show up for a small role or cameo, but Cruise and Tarantino never met about it. It was also said there would be a role in the film for Pulp Fiction star John Travolta.
The only actor to officially sign on was Brad Pitt – and when he signed on, it was rumored that he would not only be reprising the role of Cliff Booth from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, but that Cliff might also be the titular movie critic. That was presumably a change that had come about in rewrites – and if you’ve read the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood novelization, it’s not difficult to imagine that Cliff might someday start writing down his thoughts on movies. The idea that the new movie would have a strong tie to Tarantino’s previous movie wasn’t too surprising, given something he said in 2019: “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 (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) 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.“
The project got far enough along that it even secured $20,213,000 in California tax credits. Tarantino said, “I love shooting in California. I started directing movies here and it is only fitting that I shoot my final motion picture in the cinema capital of the world. There is nothing like shooting in my hometown; the crews are the best I’ve ever worked with, and the locations are amazing. The producers and I are thrilled to be making #10 in Los Angeles.” Not long after that, Tarantino decided to walk away from the project. Word was that he had “simply changed his mind” about making it and “had grown more excited by other ideas.” And since he’s locked into the idea of making ten movies, he couldn’t make this one and then move on to an eleventh.
After The Movie Critic shut down, The Hollywood Reporter stated that Tarantino had been considering using the project as a way to bid goodbye to his previous movies, which would have existed in the same era as The Movie Critic. “That way, Tarantino could bring back some of the stars of his earlier work to reprise their iconic characters in ‘movie within a movie’ moments, or to play fictional versions of themselves as the actors who played those characters.” Another idea included some of the characters interacting with a 16-year-old Tarantino, who once worked as an usher at an adult theater.
Tarantino scrapped The Movie Critic in April of 2024, and that seemed to be the end of it. But in March of 2025, WorldofReel reported that Brad Pitt and his Se7en, Fight Club, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button director David Fincher were looking to reunite on a new Netflix movie which could be the director’s next project. And on April 1st, it was revealed that Brad Pitt would reprise the role of Cliff Booth for a sequel to / derivative from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, with David Fincher on board to direct. Not only that, but Jeff Sneider added that Leonardo Dicaprio was also in talks to appear as Cliff Booth’s actor buddy Rick Dalton. Pitt was said to have been very interested in Cliff Booth’s part in the Movie Critic script, so he asked Tarantino if he would let someone else take the helm of the project. Tarantino responded that it would depend on who he had in mind. Enter David Fincher, earning Tarantino’s blessing.
By the time the world knew about it, the project was already set up at the Netflix streaming service, which Fincher has a strong working relationship with, and was scheduled to start shooting in California in July on a budget of $200 million.
It was Deadline’s Mike Fleming Jr. who mentioned the title may have changed from The Movie Critic to The Continuing Adventures of Cliff Booth.
Aside from the fact that the story takes place in 1977 California and involves film reviews being written for a porno rag, we don’t know much about what’s supposed to happen in The Continuing Adventures of Cliff Booth. The setting means we’re catching up with Cliff eight years after the events of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, by which time he has reportedly retired from stunt work and is now embarking on a new career as a Hollywood fixer.
If Leonardo DiCaprio does make an appearance as Rick Dalton, it’s not likely to be a long one. But don’t worry, 1977 wasn’t the end of the line for Cliff and Rick. Tarantino has already established a continuity where Booth died in the ‘nineties’90s, while Rick passed away just recently. He has said on his podcast that in the ’80s, Dalton made a series of action movies for Cannon Pictures called The Fireman, and that Booth directed the sequels for his friend. But that may be a story for another sequel, unless The Continuing Adventures of Cliff Booth flashes forward to the ’80s after telling its ’77 story.
Supposedly the story calls for two key female roles: one who runs a bar and mud wrestling establishment, and the other who is a trophy wife. Another character is said to be modelled after Jim Brown, the iconic football player who retired early to pursue an acting career, appearing in movies such as The Dirty Dozen.
So far, we know that Brad Pitt is joined in the cast by Elizabeth Debicki (MaXXXine), Scott Caan (Ocean’s 11), Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Candyman), and Carla Gugino (Gerald’s Game). Details on their characters have not been revealed, but we can assume that the bar owner and trophy wife roles went to Debicki and Gugino, and we know that Abdul-Mateen is playing the Jim Brown-esque character.
The reports that filming would begin in California in July were accurate. As of this writing, The Continuing Adventures of Cliff Booth is in production, having started filming on July 28. It’s expected to wrap by mid-January. Spy pics from the set showed Pitt as Cliff Booth on the first day of filming:
Fittingly, that first day of filming took place at the New Beverly Cinema, a theatre owned by Tarantino.
And that’s everything we know about The Continuing Adventures of Cliff Booth… for now.
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