Quentin Tarantino says ‘Death Proof’ tanking at box office shook his confidence to core

Quentin Tarantino says ‘Death Proof’ bombing at the box office shook his confidence to the core.

The ‘Pulp Fiction’ auteur’s 2007 Grindhouse paean, starring Kurt Russell as a psychotic, women-hating stunt driver grossed only $31 million and barely scraped back its $30 million budget – considered a failure by Tarantino’s terms.

He told Spanish newspaper Diari ARA during the international leg of his book tour to promote his ‘Cinema Speculation’ tome: “I have been lucky enough to write stories that have connected with many people, and this has allowed me to practice my art without the restrictions that most filmmakers have.

“Now, a funny thing happened: for a while I was getting a lot of project proposals, until the studios ended up assuming that I do my stories and it wasn’t worth the effort.

“But after ‘Death Proof’, which didn’t do well at the box office and was a bit of a shock to my confidence, I started getting proposals again.

“They must have thought, ‘Perhaps now he’s touched and his temper has gone down, now is the time.’”

Tarantino, 60, added the one upside of the experience was it made him double-down on creating his own work instead of taking studio commissions to direct.

The filmmaker – who intends to retire after making his next movie – said: “And there’s nothing wrong with making commissioned movies for Hollywood. They always offered me interesting projects. But I preferred to reinvest in myself and made ‘Inglourious B*******’.”

Tarantino also went on to make ‘Django Unchained’, which along with ‘Inglorious B*******’ is one of his highest-grossing films, making $426 million at the box office on a $100 million budget.