Quentin Tarantino Reveals the One Movie He Regrets Never Making

Quentin Tarantino has never been shy about his career choices, often saying he feels no regrets about the movies he did or didn’t make. But during a chat on The Church of Tarantino podcast, the director admitted there’s one project he still thinks about.

Tarantino revealed that between Jackie Brown (1997) and Kill Bill (2003), he planned to direct an adaptation of The Outfit, a crime novel written in 1963 by Donald Westlake under the name Richard Stark.

He described it as “the one project that stays in my mind,” adding, “There’s a part of me that kinda wishes, now that they’re older and they can’t do it, there’s a part of me that kinda wishes I could have done that.”

The book follows Parker, a professional thief who takes on the mob after they cross him. The character wages war against organized crime by pulling heist after heist, forcing the criminal underworld to realize that he is a man they should never underestimate.

The story was first brought to the screen in 1973 as The Outfit, starring Robert Duvall as Parker. That film, gritty and tough, stood alongside other crime classics of the era such as The Friends of Eddie Coyle. Over the years, it has been rediscovered by critics and fans who point to it as one of the hidden gems of 1970s American cinema.

Tarantino, who has written about the film in his 2022 book Cinema Speculation, had his own dream cast in mind back in the late 1990s.

In his version, Robert De Niro would have played Parker, Harvey Keitel would have taken the role of Cody, and Pam Grier would have stepped into the part of Bett Harrow. It would have reunited Tarantino with Grier after Jackie Brown and paired him again with Keitel, who had worked with him on Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction.

Instead, Tarantino watched other actors take on Parker or characters based on him. Mel Gibson starred in Payback (1999), Jason Statham headlined Parker (2013), and Mark Wahlberg played a Parker-inspired character in Play Dirty (2024).

For Tarantino, it was a missed chance to make what he felt would have been the right movie at the right time, falling perfectly between his third and fourth films.

Even so, he doesn’t dwell on regrets. He stressed that he is proud of his career and his choices. But if there’s one film he still wonders about, it’s The Outfit. For him, the thought of capturing Parker’s cold determination with that dream cast is something that will always linger.

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