Quentin Tarantino has always been able to slide around the minor controversies that have followed his career, but last week it all came to a head. When Uma Thurman shared details of the on-set accident during Kill Bill that left her seriously injured, Tarantino was forced to defend himself rather vigorously. On top of all that was Thurman's treatment at the hands of Harvey Weinstein, which Tarantino admits he could have done more about. And finally a years-old tape surfaced of him defending Roman Polanski against charges he raped 13-year-old Samantha Geimer, made all the worse by news Polanski would be a featured character in his upcoming Manson-era movie.
And now here comes the real blowback, because Showbiz411 says Sony are having second thoughts about producing Tarantino's Manson movie due to all of the bad press swirling around Tarantino right now. There may be more to it, though. For one thing, the movie is hugely expensive for a Tarantino project, hovering around $100M in production costs. Some analyst projections have it needing to hit $375M just to break even. For context, The Hateful Eight only earned $155M worldwide, while his highest-grossing movie was the controversial Django Unchained with $425M.
To be fair, the star power on this one could spur it to big numbers. Leonardo DiCaprio is set to star in the Los Angeles-set film that uses the Manson murders as its backdrop. The story follows a washed-up TV actor who, along with his sidekick/stunt double is looking to break into movies. Margot Robbie is rumored to be playing Sharon Tate, with Al Pacino, Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and Samuel L. Jackson reportedly up for roles.
Sony is probably just waiting to see which way the wind blows on this. Something tells me even if they bail somebody else would step in. Who know? Maybe Tarantino would have to cave in and turn to Netflix or Amazon, options he was dead set against just months ago.
