Ever since I saw Natural Born Killers at a friend’s house at the best school, I consider it one of the most productive films of the 90s, as well as one of director Oliver Stone’s most important films. Watching Mickey and Mallory Knox, brilliantly played by Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis, go on a cross-country adventure to express their love for each other through acts of murder and mayhem is a wild and desirable experience like no other.
So, can you believe how I felt a long time ago when I found out that Quentin Tarantino, who wrote the original script, was not a fan of Natural Born Killers, to say the least. Over the years, the director of films such as Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood have expressed their displeasure with the film and Stone’s adjustments to the material. It’s not one of Hollywood’s biggest feuds, but the story behind it is still pretty fascinating.
Before Quentin Tarantino became one of Hollywood’s brightest young filmmakers, he began promoting screenplays. True Romance, directed by Tony Scott in 1993, and Natural Born Killers were two of the most notable. In the early ’90s, before making his directorial debut with Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino wrote the screenplay for Natural Born Killers, which explains all the Tarantinoverse Easter eggs they bring to the film.
In a verbal exchange with Roger Ebert in 1994, Oliver Stone addressed various aspects of the film, adding Tarantino’s decision to hand over the commission and sell it to someone else. In the talk, Stone said that “it was a smart scenario. “however, Tarantino didn’t need to do that and instead directed Dogs. But as we all know so far, it wasn’t over. In fact, this was just the beginning.
Obviously, Tarantino’s original edition of Natural Born Killers is a simpler and less over-the-top edition than what we saw with the final product, and that’s because Stone made big adjustments to its story and central plot. In either edition, Stone’s reviews focused more on attacking American pop culture and the social climate of the time, which told IndieWire in 2019 one of the reasons the Kill Bill director was upset:
In the end, these adjustments made Natural Born Killers feel less like a movie and more like a two-hour video essay on the country’s obsession with figures like O. J. Simpson, the Menéndez brothers and journalism “if it bleeds. ” He is the one who leads. ” Oh, and he pretty much predicted the reality TV trend he followed a few years later.
Natural Born Killers is one of the most iconic films of 1994, but although the film now has cult classic status, it didn’t do very well with critics 30 years ago. In the same year that Pulp Fiction, arguably Quentin Tarantino’s most productive work, took the world by storm and replaced Hollywood and Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers’ most productive film, the Stone Experience in genre-bending terms It didn’t go so well. .
In his listings, Travers wrote that the film “attacks the violence it purports to condemn. “He wasn’t alone, as the film was rarely criticized by critics at the time. But hey, smart movies get unnecessarily harsh reviews.
When asked about the critical reaction to his film and Tarantino’s comments about it when it was released, Stone told MovieMaker magazine in 1994 that while he understood why it disappointed from a screenwriter’s point of view, he didn’t appreciate how far things had come:
In the comments, Stone explained the tweaks his team made to the script, the expansion of the Knox couple, and even praised Tarantino’s story. He also added that several of his scripts were replaced by administrators in his early days, but that he never “came out with an axe for the director. “
Nearly 25 years before publishing the expansive novel Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Tarantino considered publishing a paperback edition of his original screenplay for Natural Born Killers. Although the script finally landed on shelves in 1995, Stone and the film’s producers waged a legal war to save its publication.
According to The Independent, Stone and his team argued that because Tarantino had sold the rights to the script years earlier, he had also given up his publishing rights. Once published, however, the script joined other Tarantino projects such as Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and True Romance, any of which were published as industry paperbacks following the release of their respective films.
As much pain Tarantino has had for Stone and his company over the years, you’d think he’d have seen Natural Born Killers countless times. However, as he revealed in an interview with Opie
Tarantino’s scene referring to the satirical series “I Love Mallory” in the space of Juliette Lewis’ character with Rodney Dangerfield. He said it so badly and made him so angry that he withdrew his writer’s call and only kept the “story by” credit, giving him a ton of money.
Since 2024 marks the 30th anniversary of the release of Natural Born Killers, it would be a smart time to revisit the film that some love and others hate. No matter how you feel, I will officially say that this is one of the movies. on Netflix right now and I intend to watch it again very soon.
Philip grew up in Louisiana (not New Orleans) before moving to St. John’s. Louis after graduating from Louisiana State University in Shreveport. When he’s not writing about film or television, Philip can be found being chased by his three children, telling his dogs to stop barking at the mailman, or talking about professional wrestling with his spouse. Writing contracts with school newspapers, various journals, and other professional reports has brought him to this point where he can write about movies, shows, wrestling, and documentaries (which is a huge win for his eyes). If the stars align correctly, he’ll say For the Love of the Game is the most productive baseball movie of all time.
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