It should be no secret that Quentin Tarantino is a big fan of 70s cinema. Many films were made during this period whose influence on his works is unmistakable. But Tarantino has also read some comics. And he celebrated a Marvel hero so much that he almost gave him a film.
Quentin Tarantino wanted to make a Luke Cage movie
When The Hateful Eight was released, Yahoo Movies spoke to Quentin Tarantino. Among other things, they asked him what he thought of Luke Cage, which had received its own series on Netflix in the same year – 2016. Tarantino raved about the comic book:
I am a huge fan. I even thought about making a Luke Cage movie after Reservoir Dogs. But instead I made Pulp Fiction. So I think I made the right decision.
When you look at the success and cultural significance of Pulp Fiction, you can only agree with the man.
On the other hand, Marvel had a big box office success with Blade in 1998, and the X-Men started the big wave of comic book movies. If Luke Cage had been the first big Marvel blockbuster, Tarantino might be known today as the man who started the wave of comic book movies. We’ll never know.
It wasn’t until 2016, 24 years after Tarantino turned down the material, that Luke Cage came to Netflix as a Marvel series. Mike Colter (Evil) took on the lead role.
Tarantino would not have changed the comic for his film
Tarantino was also asked what he had hoped for from the Netflix adaptation of his hero. His expectations were not too high. He was a big fan of the original comics from the 70s and wanted to remember him that way.
To be honest, I might be one of the most annoying people because I the way the character was portrayed in the 70s, so much love. I’m not really open to rethinking who he is. (…) It was really Marvel’s attempt to stage a blacksploitation film in one of their superhero comics. And I think they nailed it. They absolutely nailed it.
If it had been up to Tarantino, he would have simply rewritten the first chapter, Luke Cage’s origin story, as a script and then adapted the comic book one-to-one.