Quentin Tarantino Suggests He May Retire Early After ‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’

Quentin Tarantino talks about retiring from filmmaking about as often as Dan Aykroyd suggests new possibilities for the Ghostbusters franchise. Of course, now that the latter is actually doing something (in the form of Jason Reitman’s upcoming film), should we expect Tarantino to follow through Judging by his recent interview with GQ Australia to promote Once Upon a Time In Hollywood, perhaps.

While speaking to the outlet, Tarantino — who famously declared we would retire from directing after his 10th film in 2016 — seemed to indicate that he was still aiming for that particular goal. “I think when it comes to theatrical movies, I’ve come to the end of the road,” he said. “I see myself writing books and starting to write theatre, so I’ll still be creative. I just think I’ve given all I have to give to movies.”

Of course, by Tarantino’s own definition, Once Upon will be his ninth feature film in the count, in that it’s a wholly original creation that he wrote and directed. The filmmaker has written and directed plenty of short films, television episodes and collaborative projects with others, like Robert Rodriguez, but he’s not counting those. And if Once Upon is actually “really well received,” he might stop even earlier. “Maybe I won’t go to 10,” he threatened. “Maybe I’ll stop right now! Maybe I’ll stop while I’m ahead. We’ll see.”

As Once Upon‘s co-star Brad Pitt, who also spoke to GQ Australia for the piece, put it, he “[doesn’t] think he’s bluffing at all” about retiring. “I think he’s dead serious,” he said of Tarantino. “I kind of openly lament that to him, but he understands the math of when he feels like directors start falling off their game. But he has other plans and we’re not going to have to say goodbye for a long time.”