For a certain scholar of internet film hype, the words “David Fincher directs a Quentin Tarantino script” sound like the kind of fake rumor that used to melt Ain’t It Cool News talkbacks in the early 2000s. And yet, somehow, it’s real — and headed to IMAX.
Netflix announced on Wednesday that The Adventures of Cliff Booth, the Fincher-directed sequel to Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, will get an exclusive two-week IMAX run beginning Nov. 25 before arriving on Netflix on Dec. 23. Brad Pitt returns as Cliff Booth, Tarantino’s stuntman-philosopher-murderer(?), only now it’s 1977 and Hollywood looks a lot grimier than the sun-drenched fantasyland of 1969.
The supporting cast includes Elizabeth Debicki, Scott Caan, Carla Gugino, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Peter Weller, and Anora standout Karren Karagulian, alongside a stacked lineup of Fincher regulars behind the camera. That includes Erik Messerschmidt (Mank, The Killer), who returns as cinematographer to do fake film grain right, and production designer Donald Graham Burt, carrying the torch from Once Upon a Time.
I still can’t wrap my mind around it. Tarantino and Fincher are two of the defining filmmakers of the last 30 years, yet feel like they operate in two different dimensions. Tarantino is all motormouthed conversations and celluloid fever dreams. Fincher is the exacting technician famous for endless takes and a digital photography sheen that has weirdly defined prestige TV since he minted Netflix with House of Cards. How will it all meld together?
Reasons to be optimistic: Fincher already proved he could elevate another famously dominant writer when he worked with Aaron Sorkin on The Social Network. And for as much of a steamroller as Tarantino might seem with his language, he was more than happy to let Tony Scott have at his True Romance script back in the ’90s. Judging by the movie’s teaser, which dropped during the Super Bowl last February, Fincher hasn’t drained the Tarantino-ness out of the material. The Adventures of Cliff Booth might be the “pickles and peanut butter” of 2026 moviegoing.
The IMAX rollout itself is also a weird little Hollywood story. Netflix already had those premium screens reserved for Greta Gerwig’s Narnia movie before that project shifted to a 2027 release date, leaving a sudden opening in a calendar. So while Dune 3 and Avengers: Doomsday duke it out over available large-format screens in December, Thanksgiving belongs to Brad Pitt wandering through a smoke-stained 1977 Los Angeles directed by David Fincher and written by Quentin Tarantino. Works for me.
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