In one of the most surprising collaborations in recent film memory, Fight Club director David Fincher will helm a sequel to Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood—with Tarantino himself penning the screenplay. The follow-up is being produced for Netflix, marking a significant shift for a franchise that began with a theatrical release from Sony Pictures.
Brad Pitt is officially confirmed to reprise his Oscar-winning role as stuntman Cliff Booth, a character whose mysterious past and understated menace captivated audiences when the original film debuted in 2019. The project, which does not yet have an official title, is in development under Fincher’s first-look deal with the streaming giant.
The pairing is unprecedented: a sequel written by one iconic director and helmed by another, with the added twist of shifting from traditional cinema to a streaming platform. The news broke just as Hollywood’s biggest studio heads and exhibitors gathered at CinemaCon, underscoring the changing landscape of film distribution.
This sequel also signals the quiet closure of another project—Tarantino’s long-anticipated The Movie Critic. Though Brad Pitt had been attached to star and a script had reportedly been completed, Tarantino ultimately shelved the idea, choosing instead to revisit the world of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Interestingly, The Movie Critic was rumored to feature a character resembling Cliff Booth, and Tarantino’s own novelization of Once Upon a Time explored Booth’s cinephile tendencies—connecting the creative threads between the two.
While Leonardo DiCaprio and Margot Robbie are not expected to return for the sequel, the story will again center around Pitt’s character. No plot details have been revealed yet, but with Tarantino handling the script and Fincher directing, expectations are sky-high for a sequel that could blend stylized violence, dark humor, and a deeper exploration of Hollywood’s golden age.
This project reunites Fincher and Pitt for the fourth time. Their previous collaborations—Se7en, Fight Club, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button—produced some of the most critically acclaimed work of both men’s careers. Fincher’s experience with stylish period pieces like Mank and Netflix thrillers like The Killer positions him as a compelling choice to evolve the world Tarantino created.
Tarantino, while best known for directing his own scripts, has a history of handing off screenplays to other filmmakers, including True Romance (Tony Scott) and From Dusk Till Dawn (Robert Rodriguez). That history—and his rights retention on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood—likely facilitated this unusual, high-profile handoff to Fincher and Netflix.
Netflix has not yet commented on the project, and a production timeline remains unclear. But with two auteurs behind it and Pitt back in a fan-favorite role, the film is already one of the most anticipated releases on the horizon.