Movie maker Quentin Tarantino may be getting ready to retire after his last film. But his last film was initially supposed to hit theaters a bit sooner before he scrapped the project. Not too long ago, Tarantino gave a slight update regarding when audiences might expect a new movie of his to hit theaters.

Quentin Tarantino isn’t rushing to finish new movie

At one point, it seemed likely that Tarantino’s last project would be The Movie Critic. From what little that was known of the movie, it was supposed to be a period piece focusing on an intriguing film reviewer.

“He wrote about mainstream movies and he was the second-string critic. I think he was a very good critic. He was as cynical as hell. His reviews were a cross between early Howard Stern and what Travis Bickle [Robert DeNiro’s character in Taxi Driver] might be if he were a film critic,” Tarantino said in a 2023 interview with Deadline.

But this changed when it was announced that Tarantino dropped The Movie Critic entirely. This left many wondering what other film would take The Movie Critic’s place as Tarantino’s last project. While visiting the Sundance Film Festival, however, Tarantino shared that it might be quite some time before his true final film is released. Right now, he’s focused more on his family life than his career. He currently shares two children with his wife Daniella Pick. They gave birth to their son Leo in 2020, and their daughter in 2022.

“I’m in no hurry to actually jump into production,” Tarantino said according to Variety. “I’ve been doing that for 30 years. Next month my son turns 5, and I have a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter. When I’m in America, I’m writing. When I’m in Israel? I’m an abba, which means father.”

Tarantino also further confided that he’d like to hold off on doing his movie until his son reaches a certain age.

“The idea of jumping on a voyage when they’re too young to understand it is not enticing to me. I kind of want to not do whatever movie I end up doing until my son is at least 6. That way he’ll know what’s going on, he’ll be there, and it will be a memory for the rest of his life,” he said.

But Tarantino hasn’t put down his pen for good. He revealed he’s currently writing a play, which could become his next last film depending on its success.

Quentin Tarantino finds doing plays much more challenging than doing movies nowadays

It seems a part of Tarantino’s decision to transition into playwriting is the state of the film industry today. The Oscar-winner believed that cinema might be in a worse place than it’s ever been during his tenure as a director. However, the art of playwriting has remained true to itself in comparison to what he felt cinema has become.

“Well, what the f*** is a movie now? What – something that plays in theaters for a token release for four f***ing weeks? All right, and by the second week you can watch it on television. I didn’t get into all this for diminishing returns. I mean, it was bad enough in ‘97. It was bad enough in 2019, and that was the last f***ing year of movies,” he said.

Tarantino didn’t have to worry about that when it came to plays.

“Theater? You can’t do that. It’s the final frontier,” he said.

It’s not the first time Tarantino mentioned writing a play. He’s been dabbling with the idea for a while, having expressed his interest in it on Bill Maher’s Club Random.

“I’m leaning more right now towards writing for theater […] in a comedy play, the audience is a character in the room. and it’s like you say this, the audience laughs, the actors kind of wait for a moment when the laugh dies down, then they got to pick up the pace and it’s a rhythm, it’s almost like the audience is almost like a live animal in the room,” Tarantino said.