After Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained, Quentin Tarantino’s fans are crying out for a third piece of rewritten history from the walking, talking, movie-referencing man-machine. Speaking at the BAFTA’s Winners press conference recently, said this on the topic: "This [rewritten history theme] begs a trilogy, it begs to have a third movie on this theme. I haven’t decided about what yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised…" But which time period deserves QT’s quillwork the most? Here are six suggestions, all of them slightly bonkers and a couple of them actually quite likely…
P.S. This feature is best read whilst listening to our Spotify playlist, Now That's What I Call... Quentin Tarantino!
Title: Seneca Falls
Tagline: “Come and suffragette some!”
Susan B. Anthony (Uma Thurman) and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (Zoe Bell) team up to take down the patriarchy in this reimagining of the fight for women’s rights. In this version, the pair march from the Seneca Falls convention straight down to Washington, fighting their way past troops of pre-War soldiers armed with naught but a bayonet and a horseshoe on a string. Oh, and Samuel L. Jackson’s Frederick Douglass to help them. In a stirring finale, they kill evil rapist President James K. Polk (Leonardo DiCaprio) (note: not actually evil or a rapist in the historical record) and castrate most of Congress. But seriously, folks: having tackled slavery and the Holocaust, it’s not too big a stretch to imagine Tarantino – who has always fetishized strong women, albeit especially their feet – tackling women’s lib. Just to find a use for the line I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar if for no other reason.
Tarantino cameo: A washed-up Aussie drunk who shouts abuse at Our Heroines in the streets of Seneca Falls.
Christoph Waltz role: The kindly Henry Stanton, who supports Cady Stanton in her struggle.
Title: The Brothers Hammerstone
Tagline: “Angry? Try berserk.”
A brothers-in-arms battleaxe-a-thon that sees three surprisingly intelligent Anglo-Saxon warriors growing pigtailed beards to join the invading Scandinavian enemy forces – before murdering them all. Magic Mike co-stars Channing Tatum, Joe Manganiello and Kevin Nash join forces once more to compete in a very bloody competition to see who can behead the most Vikings without anyone in a horned hat twigging they’ve done it. Everything’s going swimming-in-bloodily until Sven (Tatum) lets slip his Yorkshire accent to a leggy Scandie beauty (Thurman) whilst making kissy face in a steamy long house. Cue fake berserkers facing off real berserkers as things go, well, berserk.
Tarantino cameo: A washed-up (and curiously Australian-sounding) bar fly who keeps shouting “Skol!” and head-butting his skull-shaped mug.
Christoph Waltz role: A lithe but-hyper-intelligent polearm salesman.
Title: A Total Custerfuck
Tagline: “So Sioux me!”
We open on the Battle Of The Little Bighorn, the odious General Custer (Steve Buscemi) deservedly killed by the Lakota and northern Cheyenne Sioux following his policy of targeting their women and children in territorial disputes. But the Sioux forces know the backlash is coming, and their leaders – Crazy Horse, Chief Gall and spiritual leader Sitting Bull – use guerrilla tactics to take down the 7th cavalry and delivered their heads to Washington, where the President and Supreme Court promise to hold to the Treaty this time.
This isn’t so far-fetched: Tarantino said at a BAFTA Q&A that, “I could see myself doing another western, actually! I wouldn’t mind doing a couple more before everything’s all said and done. I’d like to do at least one or not two more that deal with the same issue – just different story, different characters.” And if he’s cinematically righting great injustices, the Great Sioux War is a good place to start.
Tarantino cameo: A washed-up Aussie in Custer’s regiment who runs away to report his leader’s defeat. “They’ve only bloody gone and lost some big horn or something, cobber!”
Christoph Waltz role: One of the real-life surgeons with Custer’s regiment was a Dr DeWolf – which sounds perfect for Waltz.
Title: Shanghai Vice
Tagline: “Shit just got seriously addictive”
A crash-bangingly violent wushu Western in which a lone American war veteran (played by Ryan Gosling) tackles a Shanghai cartel of opium dealers led by a Fu Manchu-type (played by Ryan Gosling with twiddly moustache) whose private army is in cahoots with corrupt British officials. Good Gosling leads the fightback, Man-With-No-Name style, when the children of his village are sold opium lollies and the women carted away to serve in Evil Gosling’s kitchens. It’s Shanghai Express meets MasterChef meets a shitload of dynamite.
Tarantino cameo: A washed-up Australian opium addict doing comedy double takes during battle scenes.
Christoph Waltz role: A German missionary with a Gatling gun.
Title: The Hession Renogades
Tagline: “The first casualty of war is your sorry ass”
Skewering D. W. Griffith’s silent drama, The Hessian Renegades, into a blood-splattered massacre of both people and spelling, the third part of QT’s alt-history trilogy ties things up nicely with a politics-meets-pillaging vengeance flick. Left for dead by a British patrol while smuggling a message to George Washington, a young militiaman (Leonardo Di Caprio) assembles a posse of country dwellers into a guerrilla force to take the fight back to the wig-talcing redcoats. The movie will end with the whole of Boston exploding. Despite this, it will still be more historically accurate than The Patriot.
Tarantino cameo: A washed-up Australian musket dealer. In a deleted scene, he’ll explain that he came to New England because, “fair go, the ale here is strewthing miraculous”.
Christoph Waltz role: A German tea salesman who, in a film-stealing scene, regales a posse of bemused redcoats with his tips for making the perfect cup of Darjeeling, before blasting the Brits away.
Title: Saint Valentine
Tagline: “Love hurts.”
A stylised prohibition-era revenge flick – Kill Bill with Tommy guns, snub pistols and in one especially weird piece of cinematic hat-tippery, custard pies. Members of South Side Italian gang led by Al Capone (Harvey Keitel) line five of Bugs Moran’s (Tim Roth) North Side Irish gang against the wall of the 2122 North Clark Street garage. The good guy brother of one of the victims, police officer Peter May (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) promptly loses it upon hearing the news, sick of both gangs and desperate to end them once and for all. Styling himself as “The Saint”, he enlists fellow boys in blue for an off-the-books blood bath at both Capone and Moran’s headquarters, at one point paper cutting a goon to death with a purposely sharpened Valentine’s Day card.
And despite this exceptionally silly plot suggestion, don’t count out the 1930s original Scarface setting for Tarantino’s next history lesson. At the same special BAFTA Q&A mentioned earlier, QT also said, “I can conceive maybe some day doing a '30s gangster picture or something like that.” If that “something like that” happens include any of the above, we’ll happily a percentage point or two, by the by.
Tarantino cameo: A washed-up Aussie mook guarding Capone’s gun room, seen sleeping soundly as May and co. arm themselves with bayonets, rocket launchers and sea mines on chains.
Christoph Waltz role: The chief of police who turns a blind eye to the Day After Saint Valentine’s Day massacre. Well, “turns a blind eye” is a little unfair – in reality he wears a fake beard and joins in on proceedings, at one point beating Moran to death with a rose bush.