Provisionally titled The Adventures Of Cliff Booth, American actor Yahya Abdul-Mateen II joins the cast in an undisclosed role. Speculation suggests that the role could be an homage to famous instances of African-American football players turning in side professions as film actors, such as activist and Cleveland Browns’ fullback Jim Brown (The Dirty Dozen) or Buffalo Bills running back O.J. Simpson (The Towering Inferno, The Naked Gun). Brown’s film role in The Dirty Dozen, a classic 1960s men-on-a-mission film led by stalwart actors Lee Marvin, John Cassavetes, and Donald Sutherland, was a noted influence on Tarantino’s own World War II men-on-a-mission tale, Inglourious Basterds. Once Upon A Time In Hollywood was a love letter to the Hollywood cinema of the late 1960s, for both its classic and faded affairs. With Tarantino returning to write the script detailing the continuing adventures of star character Cliff Booth in the 1970s, it is likely he will fill the film with his traditional homages and tributes to the films of old.

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II has been acting in major film and TV projects since 2016. For almost a decade, Abdul-Mateen has played important roles in a significant number of blockbusters and other science fiction media. In the world of superhero comics, Abdul-Mateen has tackled DC Comics’s Black Manta in their Aquaman films, Doctor Manhattan in HBO’s limited series sequel to the iconic comic Watchmen; rival company, Marvel, has Abdul-Mateen set to play Wonder Man for an upcoming Disney+ series. At the same time, Abdul-Mateen also had the difficult task of playing the roles of characters established by legendary actors: Candyman in the eponymous film and Morpheus in The Matrix Resurrections, taking over from Tony Todd and Laurence Fishburne. Though with heavy expectations, Abdul-Mateen has been seen as a highlight in those roles. For a more personal type of filmmaking, Abdul-Mateen also displayed his prowess in Jordan Peele’s sophomore horror feature, Us, tasked with another acting challenge with a dual character role.

David Fincher is the director in command of the project. Fincher has directed Brad Pitt three times already, with Seven, Fight Club, and The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, yielding some of Pitt’s most critically lauded performances. Likewise, Fincher has directed period pieces set in America during the 1970s, including Zodiac, a true crime epic starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, and Robert Downey Jr, also acclaimed for its attention to period detail and historical incident.