Is Pulp Fiction 2 Happening? What Quentin Tarantino Has Said Over The Years
There were classic Gen X movies before 1994 (e.g. "The Breakfast Club," "Heathers" and "Boyz n the Hood"), but none of these films came close to capturing the pop-culture mad, video-store zeitgeist of this cohort like Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction." The precociously talented writer-director appropriated the tough-talking, cold-around-the-heart aesthetic of classic crime fiction and made his killers talk like twentysomethings waxing stoned on cinema, music and syndicated television shows. Tarantino hit a sweet spot most moviegoers didn't know they possessed, and like anyone who catches the highest of highs, they wanted more of what he was pushing.
Almost 30 years later, Tarantino has refused to give his fans what they think they want — which is odd since he's the one who's filled their heads with the potential of sequels and spinoffs to his first two movies. But Tarantino, who has worked steadily if not prolifically over 31 years (nine movies with his tenth and apparently final feature coming in "The Movie Critic"), has told the stories he wants to tell, and, while I love his first two movies, I don't feel like I've missed out on anything.
I also realize many Tarantino fans disagree, which raises the question: why hasn't the filmmaker returned to the richly imagined universe of "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction"? The answers might not be what you expect.
The oft-teased, but never consummated return of the Vega brothers
The closest Tarantino has come to a continuation of his first two films isn't terribly close. For years, he teased "The Vega Brothers," which would've brought Michael Madsen and John Travolta together as Vic and Vincent Vega (their characters from, respectively, "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction"). But both Vegas died in these movies, meaning that the film would've been a prequel, so it stopped being feasible as the years passed.
Tarantino did reveal on the Opie and Anthony radio show in 2007 that he considered casting the actors as the older brothers of Vic and Vincent (the script, which he did not write, would've been titled "Double V Vega"), but by this point in his career, he'd lost interest in the project. At best, it sounds like a story he could've devised and handed over to another writer, but aside from his proposed "Star Trek" movie, that's never been his m.o.
There was, however, another possibility for a "Pulp Fiction" sequel of sorts, and unlike "Double V Vega," it was built around a character who survived Tarantino's bloodbath.
The further adventures of Jules Winnfield?
Samuel L. Jackson's hitman Jules Winnfield is, as far as Tarantino's tale is concerned, very much alive. And of course he is. He's a bad motherf***er. Says so on his wallet. And we know that he's found a higher purpose, which is to "walk the earth... like Caine in 'Kung Fu.'" When Vincent presses Jules on his plans, asking him how long he intends to walk the planet and get in "adventures," he responds, "Until God puts me where he wants me to be." This could evidently take Jules the rest of his life, so we could conceivably pick up with him at any juncture in his journey.
Alas, as Tarantino told the Movie Nerds in 2015, this idea was never fleshed out. If you were ever dead set on a Tarantino sequel, your best bet was "Kill Bill 3," which Tarantino was entertaining up until 2021 (as a mother-daughter star vehicle for Uma Thurman and Maya Hawke). But in an interview with DeMorgen last July, he shot this down. "I don't see that," he said. "My last film is about a film critic, a male critic. And he plays in the '70s."
So if we're holding Tarantino to his word, the "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction" narrative is officially over, at least as far as the big screen is concerned. Perhaps he'll revisit these characters in a novel somewhere down the line. He's a huge fan of noir writers like Donald Westlake and Elmore Leonard, who told stories in linked universes with recurring characters. It's a slim hope, but as long as Tarantino's writing fiction, there is hope.