David Fincher has revealed that he excised 60 pages from Quentin Tarantino’s original 230-page screenplay for The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth, the upcoming Netflix sequel to 2019’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Speaking to Empire, Fincher detailed the editorial process of refining Tarantino’s sprawling initial draft down to a 140-minute runtime. “I liked the idea that it’s a story around a bonfire,” Fincher explained. “It wasn’t about the plot as much as it was about how the participants collided with one another in the back alleys of Hollywood in 1977… The first draft I read was 230 pages. It was essentially two movies. Somewhere in there was the Venn diagram of what Brad [Pitt] wanted to do, what I want to do, what Quentin wanted to do. Not ‘want to do,’ but the areas we would focus on.”
The collaboration marks the first time another director has helmed a feature script by Tarantino since Tony Scott directed True Romance in 1993. Despite Fincher’s characterization of the project as a character-centric collision, Tarantino noted in the same profile that the sequel operates with a tighter structural pulse than its predecessor. “I don’t think of it as a hangout movie at all,” Tarantino said, comparing the tone to an Elmore Leonard crime novel. “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood was a hangout movie, but you know you’re going to [the site of the Charles Manson murders]. It has this force, thus I didn’t need a lot of plot. This script was very different. To me, it had the flavor of an Elmore Leonard paperback: a crime-story paperback feel.”
Set eight years after the events of the 1969-set original, the narrative catches up with Pitt’s Oscar-winning stuntman in 1977. Transitioning from his former life as Rick Dalton’s driver and body double, Booth now operates as a quiet Hollywood fixer operating on the fringes of the industry. His routine takes a sharp turn when talent agent Karen Crosby (Elizabeth Debicki) contacts him regarding her volatile client, action TV star Charlie Peters (Scott Caan). The ensuing entanglement draws Booth into the orbit of Charlie’s wife Toni (Carla Gugino), former athlete-turned-screen actor Roderick “Hot Rod” Harrison (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), and the Verdusco brothers (Matt Groove and JB Tadena), a pair of ruthless underworld figures terrorizing the city.
The film also stars Peter Weller as Booth’s father, Gus. Fincher directed from Tarantino’s script, with Cean Chaffin, Pitt, David Heyman, Stacey Sher, and Tarantino serving as executive producers.
The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth will debut with an exclusive two-week global theatrical engagement in IMAX beginning November 25, 2026, ahead of its streaming release on Netflix on December 23.
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