The New York Post has accused Quentin Tarantino of deliberately “trolling” US police unions in order to sell tickets to his new movie as the furore over the Oscar-winning film-maker’s anti-brutality campaigning reached a new fever pitch.
In an editorial on Thursday the News Corp-owned tabloid, which has previously called for Tarantino to apologise for labelling police who kill unarmed black and hispanic people “murderers” at a rally in the Big Apple on 24 October, suggested the director was “looking for controversy and headlines, a guaranteed box-office boost”.
It continued: “Whatever Quentin Tarantino was thinking back at the start of his ‘murderers’ flap, he’s now plainly using dead cops to promote his new movie … It’s been nearly two weeks since Tarantino headlined a Union Square anti-cop rally, just days after the murder of NYPD detective Randolph Holder. Was scoring free publicity on his mind even then?”
The comments came after Tarantino suggested that “white supremacy” was tainting the US during an appearance on MSNBC on Wednesday to discuss the fallout from his controversial speech during the rally. The Post berated the film-maker for his latest outburst, and said his regular business partner, the Oscar-winning Hollywood superproducer Harvey Weinstein, should “speak up now – loudly” if he “wants to show he’s not playing along with Tarantino’s macabre marketing ploy”.
However, Tarantino received backing from the documentary film-maker Michael Moore, who said in an Instagram post that police unions that have called for a boycott of the director’s films were “are out to get Tarantino” and argued his colleague should stand firm.
“Quentin Tarantino, a brave and good American, standing with families who’ve lost loved ones to police violence,” he wrote. “Now certain police, the same ones who defend the cops who’ve killed unarmed innocent black citizens, are out to get Tarantino. They’ve called for a boycott of his movies. Really?
“I think just the opposite. I think millions of us not only stand with Tarantino, we’re going to make sure we go see his next movie! Who’s with me? Stay strong, Quentin. They’re just frightened and in shock that a well-known and respected white guy would dare to speak out.”
The five largest police unions in the US have called for a boycott of Tarantino’s films, and national body the Fraternal Order of Police said on Thursday that it had a “surprise” coming for the director.
“Something is in the works, but the element of surprise is the most important element,” the 330,000-strong body’s executive director, Jim Pasco, told the Hollywood Reporter. He added: “Something could happen anytime between now and [the premiere]. And a lot of it is going to be driven by Tarantino, who is nothing if not predictable. The right time and place will come up and we’ll try to hurt him in the only way that seems to matter to him, and that’s economically.”
With convenient timing, the first full-length trailer for Tarantino’s new film, The Hateful Eight, also hit the web on Thursday. The western, which is released in the US on Christmas Day, stars Bruce Dern, Samuel L Jackson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Michael Madsen, Tim Roth and Kurt Russell in the story of eight 19th-century travellers trapped in a stagecoach stopover after a blizzard hits Wyoming.
