Quentin Tarantino has admitted that he made mistakes with ‘Grindhouse’, the double-bill horror project he made with Robert Rodriguez.
The films, which include Tarantino’s “Death Proof” and Rodriguez’s “Planet Terror,” were released in 2007 but flopped at the box office.
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Speaking to New York magazine, he said: “I learned a big lesson from Grindhouse and I try not to repeat the mistake.
“Robert Rodriguez and I had become accustomed to going our own way, down strange paths, and having the audience accompany us. We began to think that they would go wherever we wanted them to.
“With ‘Grindhouse,’ it wasn’t like that. It was still worth doing, but it would have been better if we hadn’t been so caught off guard by people’s lack of interest.”
The project, which also included trailers for fictional films directed by the likes of Eli Roth, Rob Zombie and Edgar Wright, cost $53m (£33.7m) to make but grossed just $24.5m (£15.6m).
Some of the fictional films, such as ‘Machete’ and ‘Hobo With A Shotgun’, were later made into real films.
Meanwhile, Tarantino’s film ‘Death Proof’ saw Kurt Russell play a violent and misogynistic ex-study doctor, who murders women in his muscle car.
Tarantino adds that after ‘Pulp Fiction’, he began being offered films from major studios, notably ‘Speed’ and ‘Men In Black’, but the offers dried up after executives realized he wasn’t interested.
But the failure of ‘Grindhouse’ sparked a revival.
“When I did ‘Grindhouse’ and it didn’t do well, they started offering me scripts for big projects again,” he said.
“I said, ‘OK, I get it. I’m in a very tough spot and they know that. I definitely have less confidence in my career than ever before right now.’”
The director spoke about the post-production stage of his latest film, the western ‘The Hateful Eight’, starring Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Samuel L. Jackson.
Speaking about the progress, he said: “We’ve already finished a little over an hour. I’ve just come back from watching an hour of the edited film.
Asked if he was happy with it, he added: “I’m not going to kill myself yet. It is what it is. We’re rushing and trying to get to the end. Then you get over it and try to do even better. But first, you just get to the end.”
It is scheduled for release on January 8, 2016.
Image credits: Dimension/PA
