If you’ve ever wondered what a period comedy from Quentin Tarantino would look like, you’ll soon have to wonder no more – the writer-director’s next project is a “rambunctious” farce set in 1830s Europe.
The Pulp Fiction filmmaker has made it clear that he plans to direct one final movie, and while he continues to mull over what that will be, he will stage a play in London’s West End in January 2027.
Tarantino’s West End debut will be The Popinjay Cavalier, which has been described as a “sweeping celebration of theatre and its heightened romance, told with Tarantino’s signature style and unmistakable wit”.
It’ll be made with the assistance of theatre-producing powerhouse Sonia Friedman Productions (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Stranger Things: The First Shadow) alongside Sony Pictures Entertainment, which distributed Tarantino’s most recent film, the Oscar-winning Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. It’s not currently known which theatre the play will be staged in.
Tarantino previously said the play would take up to two years of his life, unless “it is a flop”, and suggested he may adapt the work for the screen in what would be his directorial swan song.
He told The Church of Tarantino podcast last year: “The play is all written, it is absolutely the next thing that I’m going to do. I’m preparing for it to be a success. If it is a flop, then I will be done very quickly.”
The director, who is believed to live in Tel Aviv, Israel, with his wife, singer Daniella Pick, and their two children, will relocate to London to direct the play.
In 2025, the filmmaker said he was in “no rush” to make his final film as he was enjoying time with his children, who are five and three.
“I kind of want to not do whatever movie I end up doing until my son is at least six,” he said. “That way he will know what’s going on, he’ll be there and it will be a memory for the rest of his life. My daughter is already such a genius, she’ll just get it.”
It was believed for a short spell that Tarantino’s final film would be The Movie Critic, which he wrote with his Inglorious Basterds and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood star Brad Pitt in mind.
The project would have been set in 1970s California and was “based on a guy who really lived but was never really famous, and he used to write movie reviews for a porno rag”.
However, Deadline claimed that Tarantino “had a change of heart” and went ”back to the drawing board” to figure out what that final movie will be.
It’s currently unknown who will be in The Popinjay Cavalier, but it’s a sure bet the play won’t star Hollywood actor Paul Dano.
Earlier this year, the Kill Bill director branded Dano the “weakest f***ing actor” in Paul Thomas Anderson’s acclaimed 2007 film There Will Be Blood, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, while ranking his favourite films of the 21st century on The Bret Easton Ellis podcast.
He controversially described the Little Miss Sunshine actor as “such a weak, weak, uninteresting guy”, adding “I don’t care for him”, before also name-checking Wedding Crashers star Owen Wilson and Scooby-Doo actor Matthew Lillard as actors he doesn’t enjoy watching.
Later this year, a sequel to Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, focused on Pitt’s character Cliff Booth, will be released on Netflix. Tarantino wrote the project, which is directed by Seven and Fight Club’s David Fincher.
