Quentin Tarantino has made a lot of great movies, but there’s also one particular project he abandoned back in the early 90s, when he stood on the precipice of announcing himself as a revolutionary filmmaker that would propel him to dizzying heights with his non-linear masterclass Pulp Fiction.
The Hateful Eight writer/director explained to Nerdist, via Squareeyed, during their podcast, that he considered making a Luke Cage movie back before he developed Pulp Fiction. The director went on to explain that he even tipped Laurence Fishburne for the titular role, while the studio preferred Wesley Snipes.
Further creative differences ultimately pushed Tarantino away from the project. Snipes, on the other hand, would go on to star in another Marvel comics adaptation in the shape of Blade.
Here’s what Tarantino had to say about the abandoned project: “One of the things I wanted to do before Pulp Fiction to some degree or another…one of the outside projects that I considered doing was doing a Luke Cage movie.
“In the case of Luke Cage, it was my comic geek friends that almost talked me out of it, because I thought Larry Fishburne back in the day would’ve been a great Luke Cage, and they were talking about Wesley Snipes. And I could see them both, but it was like ‘I think Fish would be better.’ And they go ‘Yeah…he could work out and everything, but he doesn’t have the bod that Wesley Snipes has, and Luke Cage needs to have the bod.’
“And I literally was so turned off that that would be their both starting and ending point, that it literally put it in my head that, if I do a comic book movie, it should be an original character. It should be something I create rather than try to fit in.”
Luke Cage has finally come into existence on the screen though. He’s played by Mike Colter on the hit Netflix series Marvel’s Jessica Jones, while he will get his own show in 2016.
Tarantino, meanwhile, also offered that he’s still not against doing a comic book movie. He added that if he did, however, “it should be an original character.” We’re not going to lie, the idea of Tarantino creating and developing an original comic book character for the big screen is very exciting indeed. He’s always best when working off his own original work, anyways.
Irwin Fletcher
I'm an LA journalist who really lives for his profession. I have also published work as Jane Doe in various mags and newspapers across the globe. I normally write articles that can cause trouble but now I write for FTN because Nerds are never angry, so I feel safe.
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