Margot Robbie and Quentin Tarantino on the Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood set, photo via Andrew Cooper/Sony
We know full well there’s more of the Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood story for Quentin Tarantino to tell. The filmmaker has long teased plans for a four-hour director’s cut, he’s penning a novel that is set to expand the story further, and there’s that dream of an actual Bounty Law TV series. But according to one of the original film’s stars, there’s one particularly long version of Once Upon a Time that could span nearly a full day.
Speaking with Variety about her recent film Promising Young Woman, Margot Robbie teased that Tarantino has a 20-hour cut of his twisted tale of ’70s Hollywood. “There’s a 20-hour cut of Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood that would… there’s so much more that you didn’t get to see, that we shot that was amazing, and for a million reasons obviously, can’t make the cut,” said the actress, who played Sharon Tate in the film.
Of course, the idea of their being a 20-hour version of any movie feels like exaggeration, as it’s hard to imagine that much film piling up on a cutting room floor and a studio’s budget bottomline. It’s likely Robbie was being hyperbolic, meaning that Tarantino has a lot of unused footage from the movie that could be cut into a grander vision.
Again, Tarantino himself has said his director’s cut would add an hour and 20 minutes to the original film’s runtime, bringing the total to four hours. Could he go even longer, as Robbie suggests? Entirely plausible. One way or another, it seems we’re likely to see a Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood extended cut at some point, either as elongated film or, as Tarantino did with The Hateful Eight, possibly as a chaptered mini-series.
Elsewhere in her interview, Robbie addressed rumors of another rumored director’s cut, that of David Ayer’s Suicide Squad. With the largely positive response to Zack Snyder’s Justice League, fans are starting up the call for David Ayer’s Suicide Squad; but according to Robbie, who originated her role as Harley Quinn in the DC Extended Universe movie, those begging for more might have to settle with what’s coming in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad sequel.
Editors’ Picks
“Not to my knowledge, there is not a David Ayer cut that is in the works or going to be released,” the actress said, echoing statements previously made by Warner Bros.
