One of Tarantino’s earliest influences was Elmore Leonard, whose refreshingly minimalist crime fiction introduced a young Q.T. to the notion of real-life obstacles getting in the way of genre situations. Before Tarantino adapted Leonard’s Rum Punch for the screen as Jackie Brown, the author’s iconic interconnected crime novels had influenced his first two films, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. With uniquely structured stories, engaging plot twists, and rich characters worth exploring in more depth, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction both present Tarantino with the perfect groundwork to emulate the work of his formative literary inspiration.
As a brutal historical revenge fantasy, Django Unchained is facilitated more by its blood-drenched action scenes than its plot and character development. But a Django novelization would evoke the other genre that Leonard is best known for: the western. In movie form, Django Unchained acts as an origin story for a gun-toting ex-slave vigilante. Instead of retelling that story, Tarantino could follow on from those origins with Django’s continued adventures in a series of sequel novels. These sequels could introduce Django fans to some of the supporting characters that were cut from the script.
Instead of throwing his hat in the western novel ring with Django Unchained, Tarantino could novelize his other western, The Hateful Eight. Tarantino has discussed the possibility of adapting The Hateful Eight as a stage play with a new cast, which could work out wonderfully, but it’s also a prime candidate for a novelization. A Hateful Eight novel would be a great opportunity for Tarantino to combine the immersive Old West descriptions of Leonard’s western stories with the twisty plotting of Agatha Christie’s murder mysteries.
From the opening dairy farm interrogation to the “Name Game” scene, it would be impossible to capture the tension of Inglourious Basterds’ greatest sequences in a novel, because the acting brings them to life. Without English-speaking actors trying not to slip up in German-language conversation, the “Name Game” scene would just be 20 pages of a standard game night. The genius of Hans Landa’s character is that, on paper, most of his dialogue would come off as mild and mundane. What makes him one of the greatest villains ever created is that this mundane dialogue is paired with Christoph Waltz’s chilling performance. Tarantino’s dialogue could be copied word-for-word into a novel, but Waltz’s icy Oscar-winning glare would be lost.
One of the most notable things about Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’s novelization is the detours it takes from the movie. The blood-soaked finale appears relatively early in the novel, and Tarantino explores years of its aftermath. An Inglourious Basterds novelization could work with a similar approach, leaving the heroes and their most triumphant moments intact while exploring and embellishing the alternate history created by Adolf Hitler’s wildly inaccurate death scene. Over the years, Tarantino’s Basterds script got so overstuffed that he considered turning it into a limited series. Some of the subplots that had to be cut to streamline the story could be restored in a novelization. Since Tarantino’s Hollywood novel wasn’t afraid to contradict the movie, a Basterds novel could go back to Shoshanna’s original characterization as a WWII-era Beatrix Kiddo, killing Nazi officers and crossing their names off of a list.
Whatever movie Tarantino chooses to novelize next, it could be a while before fans get to see it. His next book is a nonfiction work analyzing the New Hollywood movement. That could be followed by The Films of Rick Dalton, an in-depth career retrospective of a fictional actor. But after those books come out and the Hateful Eight play debuts and Tarantino gets around to making what he plans to be his final movie, it would be great to read a new version of Reservoir Dogs or Inglourious Basterds or Django Unchained in novel form.
