Quentin Tarantino had already written another movie for Brad Pitt’s Cliff Booth when he decided he didn’t want to direct it. “He was the one I felt I was really letting down when I didn’t do it,” he said of Pitt in an Empire interview excerpted by Entertainment Weekly.
The screenplay became The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth, a follow-up to Tarantino’s 2019 film Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood. It had been considered for his tenth and planned final movie as a director.
Pitt won the supporting actor Oscar in 2020 for playing Cliff, the stuntman and driver working for Leonardo DiCaprio’s fading television star Rick Dalton. He wanted another opportunity to play the character.
David Fincher ultimately directed the follow-up from Tarantino’s screenplay. For Pitt, that meant reuniting with the filmmaker who had directed him in Seven, Fight Club and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Brad Pitt Asked David Fincher to Read Tarantino’s Script
Speaking alongside Tarantino, Fincher recalled that Pitt approached him about reading the screenplay. He was interested, but wanted to know that Tarantino had given permission before opening it. Pitt returned with that approval, and Fincher was quickly taken with the material.
“You could have knocked me over with a feather,” Tarantino recalled of hearing that Fincher might be interested, in remarks also reported by Variety. Once they began talking, he worried that saying the wrong thing might somehow put Fincher off the project.
Tarantino said that, despite the recognition his screenplays had received, he still felt people regarded him as a director who wrote primarily for himself. He was particularly pleased that a filmmaker of Fincher’s stature would devote a year and a half to bringing his material to the screen.
Fincher Cut 60 Pages From Tarantino’s First Draft
The first version Fincher read ran 230 pages. In an earlier excerpt from the Empire conversation, covered by TheWrap on October 20, he described removing about 60 pages as he, Pitt and Tarantino worked out which parts of the story they wanted to concentrate on.
Tarantino did not consider the new screenplay a hangout movie in the mold of its predecessor. He compared its feel to an Elmore Leonard crime paperback, while Fincher was interested in how the characters crossed paths and collided with one another.
Working with Pitt brought an unfamiliar challenge. Fincher said the actor knew Cliff more thoroughly than he ever could, even though he sometimes needed to push back on that certainty.
About a month and a half into filming, Fincher told Tarantino that he kept returning to the 1975 comedy Shampoo as a reference, he recalled in a separate account published by Netflix’s Tudum. He described a Los Angeles populated by agents unhappy with their jobs, stuntmen who had aged out of the business and television stars whose egos were creating problems.
Cliff Booth Returns as a Fixer in 1977 Hollywood
The story moves forward eight years from the original film’s 1969 setting. Cliff now earns money as a bartender and projectionist while taking on work as a fixer for people in the entertainment business, according to Netflix.
A call from talent agent Karen Crosby, played by Elizabeth Debicki, draws him into the world of her client Charlie Peters. Scott Caan plays the television star, who is known for performing his own stunts. Carla Gugino plays Charlie’s wife, Toni, while Yahya Abdul-Mateen II appears as Roderick “Hot Rod” Harrison, a football champion turned actor.
The cast also includes Timothy Olyphant and Peter Weller. Matt Groove and JB Tadena play the Verdusco brothers, gangsters whose activities bring another set of problems into Cliff’s path.
The film begins an exclusive two-week global IMAX run on November 25, 2026. It arrives on Netflix on December 23.