'Once Upon A Time In Hollywood' Could Get A Miniseries Extended Cut Like 'The Hateful Eight'

Old and busted: Director's cuts. New hotness: Miniseries extended cuts.

That seems to be the mentality that writer/director Quentin Tarantino now has when it comes to fleshing out his movies. Just recently, Tarantino released a new miniseries cut of his western The Hateful Eight on Netflix. It was different from the extended roadshow cut that toured the United States, and it was the first time any alternate cut of the movie had been made available to stream. And it sounds like there's a chance he may be working on a Once Upon a Time in Hollywood miniseries extended cut.

Brad Pitt recently spoke with The New York Times reporter Kyle Buchanan while making the publicity rounds for his new sci-fi thriller Ad Astra, and discussion turned to the changing face of the film industry and whether or not cinema will continue to live in the movie theater. During the exchange, Pitt said:

"I'm curious to see if movies last, if movies stick around. What I notice about the younger generation is that they're used to receiving a lot of information at a much faster pace, and they're more inclined to watch a short series of episodes where you can stay in it as long as you want or jump out whenever you get bored. With a film, to sit down for two hours is a commitment that a lot of people aren't willing to make. I love when you can have that transportive experience, but I may be a dinosaur."

That might not necessarily be the main reason that Quentin Tarantino decided to turn The Hateful Eight into a miniseries on Netflix, but it certainly could help get more eyes on a story that would otherwise require someone to sit still for over three hours Four episodes at 50 minutes each feels a lot less daunting to our short attention spans than a movie of that same length. And while Pitt still prefers the theatrical experience of a movie, he does see the benefit of cutting it into a miniseries:

"On the other hand, I look at series where you can spend more time on characters and story and explore more angles you don't always get to do in films. So much of these films end up on the cutting room floor because they just don't fit in that box. That's why I think it's interesting that Tarantino took Hateful Eight and ostensibly repurposed it as a [four]-part series. It's almost the best of both worlds: You have the cinema experience that exists, but you can actually put more content in the series format."

It's that mentality that Tarantino likely has when it comes to drawing out his stories in this new format. And that may ring even more true with a movie like Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, a film that is much more concerned with the development of characters and intimate moments between them (for better or worse, depending on who you talk to) than with progressing the plot in a timely manner. A miniseries would allow the audience to spend even more time with Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio as Cliff Booth and Rick Dalton, not to mention Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate.

During this conversation, it was confirmed that Tarantino has indeed talked about turning Once Upon a Time in Hollywood into a miniseries cut with more footage, and Pitt called it "a pretty arousing idea." We know there's plenty of footage that didn't make it into the final movie, including a different ending for the controversial Bruce Lee fight, and potentially some cut scenes involving James Marsden, Danny Strong and Tim Roth, the latter being listed in the film's credits as being cut from the film. Hopefully we'll hear more about this Once Upon a Time in Hollywood miniseries extended cut sometime soon.