Quentin Tarantino To Release Highly Anticipated Books with HarperCollins

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Quentin Tarantino has signed a two book deal with Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Tarantino’s first work of fiction, ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD, will be published in Summer 2021. The novel is based on his Oscar-winning film, which received ten Academy Award nominations. In the tradition of the classic movie novelizations that have long inspired Tarantino, the book will appear initially as a Harper Perennial mass market paperback, alongside ebook and digital audio editions. A deluxe hardcover edition will follow in Fall 2021.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD will amplify Tarantino’s original award-winning vision, while also offering a fresh, playful and shocking departure from the film. The novel will chart the lives of Tarantino’s protagonists – TV actor Rick Dalton and his stunt double Cliff Booth – both forward and backward in time.

“In the seventies movie novelizations were the first adult books I grew up reading,” says Tarantino. “And to this day I have a tremendous amount of affection for the genre. So as a movie-novelization aficionado, I’m proud to announce ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD as my contribution to this often marginalized, yet beloved sub-genre in literature. I’m also thrilled to further explore my characters and their world in a literary endeavor that can (hopefully) sit alongside its cinematic counterpart.”

Vice President and Executive Editor Noah Eaker, who acquired North American rights from the William Morris Endeavor Agency, says, “Quentin Tarantino’s literary talents have been in plain sight since his first scripts, but to see how skillfully he endows his characters with life on the page and how he constantly takes a reader by surprise, even one who knows the movie by heart, is to see a master storyteller trying on a new form and making it his own.”

Tarantino’s second work with Harper will be a book of nonfiction, CINEMA SPECULATION. He has often cited film critic Pauline Kael as a literary hero and over the years has teased a career pivot toward film-writing. The long-awaited result is a deep dive into the movies of the 1970’s. The book will be a rich mix of essays, reviews, personal writing, and tantalizing “what if’s,” from one of cinema’s most celebrated filmmakers, and its most devoted fan.

ABOUT QUENTIN TARANTINO

With his vibrant imagination and dedication to richly layered storytelling QUENTIN TARANTINO is one of the most celebrated filmmakers of his generation. Tarantino made his directorial debut with RESERVOIR DOGS, a film which made an auspicious debut at the Sundance Film Festival and marked Tarantino’s first trip to Cannes (out of competition). The film, which received praise from audiences and critics alike, became an instant cult classic and remains one of Tarantino’s most beloved and influential films. Following, RESERVOIR DOGS Tarantino co-wrote, directed and starred in one of his most beloved films, PULP FICTION, which won numerous critics’ awards, a Golden Globe and Academy Award® for Best Screenplay, and the Palme D’Or at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival. He then made JACKIE BROWN, KILL BILL VOL. 1 and VOL. 2, and DEATH PROOF. INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, Tarantino’s World War II epic released in 2009, garnered numerous nominations including six BAFTA, four Golden Globe and eight Academy Award® nominations. In 2013, Tarantino won his second Oscar® for Best Screenplay for DJANGO UNCHAINED. The film was also nominated for five Golden Globe Awards (with a win for Tarantino for Best Screenplay), five BAFTAS (with another win for Tarantino) and five Academy Awards®. In 2015, Tarantino wrote and directed THE HATEFUL EIGHT, which received BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for the film’s screenplay.

Tarantino’s most recent film, ONCE UPON A TIME...IN HOLLYWOOD, was nominated for 5 Golden Globes, (winning Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy, Best Supporting Actor and Best Screenplay for Tarantino), 10 BAFTAS, and 10 Academy Award nominations including: Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay. 

ABOUT HARPERCOLLINS:

HarperCollins Publishers is the second largest consumer book publisher in the world, with operations in 17 countries. With 200 years of history and more than 120 branded imprints around the world, HarperCollins publishes approximately 10,000 new books every year in 16 languages and has a print and digital catalog of more than 200,000 titles. Writing across dozens of genres, HarperCollins authors include winners of the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Newbery and Caldecott Medals and the Man Booker Prize. HarperCollins, headquartered in New York, is a subsidiary of News Corp (Nasdaq: NWS, NWSA; ASX: NWS, NWSLV) and can be visited online at corporate.HC.com.