“When you grow up, if you still feel raw about it, I’ll be waiting.”
As a huge fan of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill movies (I rocked my Gogo Yubari shirt at Comic-Con last week), I still cling to those words, uttered by The Bride (Uma Thurman) to a young girl moments after killing her mother Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox) in mortal combat. I cling to it in hopes that someday Tarantino will make good on those words with a Kill Bill sequel, something he has teased many times in the past. However, with Tarantino supposedly retiring with his tenth and final movie, the likelihood of it happening is slim. That said...it isn't completely dead, either.
Tarantino was a guest on the HappySadConfused podcast and revealed that he's still kicking around ideas for a new Kill Bill movie, and even spoke with Uma Thurman about it recently...
“Me and Uma have talked about it recently, frankly, to tell you the truth. I’m not sure if I’m going to do it, but I have thought about it a little further. We were talking about it literally last week. If any of my movies were going to spring from my other movies, it would be a third Kill Bill.”
For numerous reasons, Kill Bill would be the perfect movie for a sequel, giving us a chance to learn more about the Bride outside of just her thirst for revenge. The previous story, which is by far my favorite of Tarantino's (although Once Upon a Time in Hollywood comes close), gave Tarantino a chance to indulge in his love of old kung fu movies and spaghetti Westerns. A rich world of colorful martial artists and assassins was built that is just dying to be explored in a fuller way.
There's a reason why I've neglected to refer to a sequel as Kill Bill 3, and that's because Tarantino says it wouldn't be true. Kill Bill was released in 2003 as two separate movies, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, but it was initially meant to be a single nearly 4-hour epic. Despite the release strategy he ultimately went with, Tarantino insists to Cinemablend it is still just one movie...
“Technically we released it as two movies, and there is a closing and an opening credits [on each movie], but since I made it as one movie and I wrote it as one movie, [it’s one movie].”
“Now it works really good that way. Frankly, the truth of the matter is, I don’t think it would’ve been as popular as a four hour movie. I literally had a guy say that to me. It was one of those weird diamond bullet moments where you can’t unhear it. He said, ‘Quentin, here’s the thing. My uncle would love this movie, but he wouldn’t love it at four hours.’”
He's right. Kill Bill Vol. 1 was his highest-grossing movie at that point with over $180M. Vol. 2 would open a few months later in 2004 and earn $152M. Plus, the two films are so divergent in tone that a split always felt natural. A combined cut exists titled The Whole Bloody Affair, but who knows if Tarantino will ever release it into theaters or make it available for purchase. Lordy, I hope so.
Here's hoping Tarantino makes his tenth movie a return to the crazy kick-ass world of Kill Bill and not some R-rated Star Trek.
