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Tom Cruise is allegedly talking with Quentin Tarantino to join the cast of The Movie Critic, which may be the swan song for the legendary director. The news was reported by The Insneider.
According to Jeff Sneider, Cruise is focused on his Mission: Impossible 8 work but is also considering a “small role or cameo” in the Tarantino project. Though final details have not been announced, it’s being speculated Brad Pitt may play the lead role, that of a minor writer who contributed reviews to The Popstar Pages, a 1970s porno publication in California.
Tarantino was quoted in a 2023 interview as saying that the character is “a guy who really lived but was never really famous, and he used to write movie reviews for a porno rag. 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 [of Taxi Driver] might be if he were a film critic … But the porno rag critic was very, very funny. He was very rude, you know. He cursed. He used racial slurs. But his sh-t was really funny. He was as rude as hell.”
The Hollywood rumor mill is also speculating that other cast members may include Kurt Russell, Samuel L. Jackson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Paul Walter Hauser, or John Travolta. It’s also believed that Sony Pictures might be distributing The Movie Critic, with Stacey Sher as a producer. Release date will probably be sometime in 2025 or 2026.
Tarantino had earlier considered Cruise for the role of Cliff Booth in his 2019 film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Brad Pitt ended up winning an Oscar for playing that character. Other major films by Tarantino have included Pulp Fiction in 1994 and Django Unchained in 2012.