According to insiders, Quentin Tarantino’s much-anticipated ninth film might be collateral damage in the iconic director’s mounting #MeToo troubles.
As The Daily Wire has chronicled, Tarantino’s name has repeatedly come up in all kinds of unflattering contexts since the dam first broke on his long-time business partner Harvey Weinstein’s alleged chronic predation. Though Tarantino quickly admitted that he was aware of some of Weinstein’s behavior and failed to do “enough,” his public confession hasn’t spared him from some rather ugly headlines, including his role in Uma Thurman’s infamous car crash on the set of “Kill Bill” and his partial defense of child rapist Roman Polanski in a 2003 interview with Howard Stern.
Now, multiple reports claim that Tarantino’s deal with Sony to produce his Charles Manson-themed ninth film — which the director moved to Sony from The Weinstein Company shortly after the Harvey fallout began — is possibly in trouble. Noting that at least three Manson-themed movies are set for release on the 50th anniversary of the murder of Sharon Tate, wife of Polanski, MovieWeb underscores that Tarantino’s is by far the largest of the three, with a reported budget of $200 million. Citing a report by Showbiz 411, MovieWeb reports that “Sony is having second thoughts about the movie.”
The sources of Sony’s reported unease include Tarantino telling Stern back in 2003 that Polanski’s 13-year-old victim, whom the disgraced director drugged and raped, “wanted to have it.” The film, which follows two stuntmen in the Manson era, is supposed to include a young Polanski character.
Another major source of Sony’s alleged misgiving is a New York Times report by Maureen Dowd portraying Tarantino as a potentially sadistic director who chose to personally perform some violent and humiliating scenes with Thurman as well as having pressured her to do her own stunt driving, which resulted in severe injury to the actress.
Both Thurman and Tarantino have pushed back against the negative portrayal of him by Dowd. Last week, Tarantino gave a lengthy interview addressing all of the allegations against him, including what he did and didn’t know about Weinstein and the actions he took in response.