Quentin Tarantino gave the audience at AFI Fest a surprise on Friday night when he screened the first 17 minutes of The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. The new Cliff Booth film stars Brad Pitt and is directed by David Fincher, and it reaches IMAX screens on 25 November before arriving on Netflix on 23 December.
The surprise came at the end of a question and answer session that followed an IMAX screening of Tarantino’s 2019 film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Tarantino offered the cheering crowd a choice. He could talk a little about the sequel, he said, or he could show them its first 17 minutes.
He chose the second option. Tarantino asked the audience to switch off their phones before the footage played, and security staff in the theatre watched for any sign of a glowing screen. The footage was the first public look at the sequel, and the crowd stayed with it from start to finish.
Fincher was in the theatre for the screening. He had walked the red carpet for the event, but he did not speak about the footage. Tarantino presented the new film on his own, which felt fitting for a project that began as his script.
Tarantino wrote the screenplay for the sequel and then handed the directing job to Fincher. It is an unusual move for a filmmaker who normally directs his own writing, and it is one of the reasons the film has drawn so much attention since it was first announced.
Pitt returns as Cliff Booth, the laid-back stuntman he played in the 2019 original. In that film, Booth was the loyal friend and driver of fading television star Rick Dalton, played by Leonardo DiCaprio. The role won Pitt an Academy Award for best supporting actor.
A new life in 1977
The sequel moves the story forward to 1977, eight years after the events of the original film. Los Angeles has changed, and so has Cliff. He is no longer working as a stuntman.
In the opening footage, Cliff works at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles, the real-life movie house that Tarantino owns. He keeps the films running as a projectionist and serves drinks behind the bar, but that is only part of his working life.
When he is not at the cinema, Cliff works as a fixer. He sorts out problems for people in the entertainment business, using skills that most people in Hollywood do not have. The new film follows that work, and the opening minutes set up the world he now moves in.
The footage also introduces the people around him. Elizabeth Debicki plays talent agent Karen Crosby, while Scott Caan plays television star Charlie Peters and Carla Gugino plays his wife Toni. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays former football player turned actor Roderick Harrison, known as Hot Rod.
One early scene gives a flavour of the film’s humour. Cliff buys a haul of stolen goods, and among the items is a Best Director Oscar. It is a small joke with a sharp edge, since neither Tarantino nor Fincher has ever won that prize.
A rare cinema release
The film is one of the rare Netflix films to open in IMAX cinemas before it reaches streaming. It arrives in IMAX theatres on 25 November, and it starts streaming on Netflix on 23 December. That gap gives audiences a month to see it on the big screen first.
Interest in the film has been building since 2024, when news first broke that Pitt and Fincher would team up on a project Tarantino had once planned to direct himself. Fincher has said the first draft of Tarantino’s screenplay ran to 230 pages, and he cut about 60 pages from it before filming.
The finished film runs for about two and a half hours. That length suits a story that takes its time, much like the original film, which was praised for its relaxed pace and its detailed picture of late 1960s Los Angeles.
Back to Booth
Tarantino told the AFI Fest audience why he wanted to return to the character. He said he loved Cliff Booth, and he loved the way Pitt played him. That affection was the starting point for the new film.
He also recalled a review of the original film that stayed with him. The reviewer suggested that Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was the first fictional world Tarantino had created that he might actually want to live in. Tarantino agreed with the thought, and the sequel gives him a chance to spend more time in that world.
The original film earned ten Academy Award nominations. Pitt’s win for best supporting actor was one of two Oscars for the film, and it remains one of the most loved performances of his career. The sequel now has to live up to that standard, and the AFI Fest audience got the first chance to judge it.
Friday night was also a first for Tarantino in another way. He told the crowd it was the first time he had ever watched Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in IMAX, and the first time he had seen it at the TCL Chinese Theatre. The evening began as a celebration of the old film and ended as the launch of the new one.
