The Movie Critic ne sera pas l'ultime film du cinéaste, qui préfère finalement explorer d'autres pistes et idées.

Visiblement insatisfait de son projet intitulé "The Movie Critic", Quentin Tarantino reprend de zéro pour son dixième et ultime long-métrage.

Pair are rumored to be reuniting for 70s-set drama The Movie Critic after last working together in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Brad Pitt is reportedly starring in Quentin Tarantino’s final film The Movie Critic, according to a Deadline report.

The pair previously worked together in 2019’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood with the role bringing Pitt his first Oscar for best supporting actor. Pitt also starred in 2009’s Inglourious Basterds and featured in 1993’s True Romance, which was co-written by Tarantino.

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En 2009, Quentin Tarantino annonçait qu'il prendrait sa retraite à l'âge de 60 ans. Aujourd'hui, le réalisateur de « Pulp Fiction » et de « Jackie Brown » réitère cette affirmation et s'interroge sur l'avenir du cinéma à l'ère du streaming.

Quentin Tarantino s’en prend au streaming… et à Ryan Reynolds

Quentin Tarantino va fouler la croisette et aura un "film surprise" à présenter au public.

Tarantino à Cannes avec un “film surprise”

Le réalisateur américain a la langue pendue et vient critiquer l’industrie du cinéma tout en faisant des éloges à son propre travail.

Pour Tarantino, les films d’aujourd’hui sont les pires de l’histoire du cinéma

Last fall, movie director Quentin Tarantino announced that he would auction ‘Pulp Fiction’ NFTs to the public.

These NFTs would unlock handwritten scripts and exclusive custom commentary from Tarantino, assets that many fans would like to get their hands on.

NFTs are not without copyright issues, however, as Quentin Tarantino swiftly discovered. Movie studio Miramax, which owns most of the rights to the film, sees the plan as a contract breach and copyright infringement.

NFT Copyright Battle

In a lawsuit filed at a California federal court last November, the movie company accused the director of attempting to cash in on something to which he doesn’t own the full rights.

“Eager to cash in on the non-fungible token (‘NFT’) boom, as widely reported in the media, Quentin Tarantino recently announced plans to auction off seven ‘exclusive scenes’ from the 1994 motion picture Pulp Fiction in the form of NFTs,” the complaint read.

Despite this legal dispute, the first NFT was put up for auction early this year, selling for over a million dollars. Follow-up token auctions were halted soon after but the lawsuit continued.

Settlement

In June, Tarantino’s legal team asked the court to dismiss the case . This request was actively fought by Miramax. Behind the scenes, however, both sides also tried to reach agreement.

Last week, Tarantino and Miramax came together for a full-day settlement discussion, led by mediation firm Signature Resolution. While some progress was made, both parties informed the court that the case hadn’t been settled.

A week later, the movie director and film studio have now reached an agreement. A few hours ago, they filed an official notice of settlement at the California federal court.

“The parties have settled this case and expect to file their dismissal papers within two weeks,” their settlement notice reads.

More Tarantino NFTs?

The settlement details have not been shared in public but via a press statement, both parties suggest that more NFTs may be released in the future. If that’s the case, Miramax will likely get part of the cut.

“The parties have agreed to put this matter behind them and look forward to collaborating with each other on future projects, including possible NFTs,” Tarantino and Miramax comment.

With the settlement, the legal battle is effectively over. The official TarantinoNFT website remains online at the time of writing. The same can’t be said for the Twitter account, which quietly disappeared a few months ago.

Miramax used the website and the Twitter account as evidence in court, as they both posted copyrighted imagery from the Pulp Fiction film. The website was later updated to show images from Tarantino only, while the potentially infringing tweets were deleted at the same time.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Last fall, movie director Quentin Tarantino announced that he would auction ‘Pulp Fiction’ NFTs to the public.

These NFTs would unlock handwritten scripts and exclusive custom commentary from Tarantino, assets that many fans would like to get their hands on.

NFTs are not without copyright issues, however, as Quentin Tarantino swiftly discovered. Movie studio Miramax, which owns most of the rights to the film, sees the plan as a contract breach and copyright infringement.

NFT Copyright Battle

In a lawsuit filed at a California federal court last November, the movie company accused the director of attempting to cash in on something to which he doesn’t own the full rights.

“Eager to cash in on the non-fungible token (‘NFT’) boom, as widely reported in the media, Quentin Tarantino recently announced plans to auction off seven ‘exclusive scenes’ from the 1994 motion picture Pulp Fiction in the form of NFTs,” the complaint read.

Despite this legal dispute, the first NFT was put up for auction early this year, selling for over a million dollars. Follow-up auctions were halted soon after but the same can’t be said about the legal battle.

After some early mud-throwing back and forth, Tarantino’s legal team asked the court to dismiss the case last month. According to the defense, Miramax’s claims are ungrounded. Tarantino sees the film as a derivative of the screenplay he personally wrote and still holds the rights to

‘Tarantino Only has the Print rights’

This week, Miramax responded to the motion, arguing that the star director misrepresented the facts. While he indeed retained some rights to the screenplay, those rights are rather limited.

“Defendants are roughly half right about the rights to Pulp Fiction. As one of the authors of what would become the blockbuster movie, Quentin Tarantino at one point had extensive rights to some elements that ultimately comprised the film.”

“But he assigned and transferred virtually all of those rights to Miramax in June 1993, carving out only a specifically enumerated, limited set of ‘Reserved Rights’ far narrower than Defendants’ Motion suggests,” Miramax adds.

‘History Rewritten’

Tarantino is “shockingly” trying to mischaracterize the license agreements by leaving out critical parts, Miramax informs the court. The movie company admits that the director reserved the print publication rights to the screenplay, but not much more than that.

The movie studio says that the 1993 agreement clearly shows that it holds virtually all rights to the Pulp Fiction screenplay. The legal paperwork also carved out a section for the distribution of content in new types of media that had yet to be invented.

That last past wasn’t mentioned by Tarantino’s legal team. Since NFTs did not exist yet in the nineties, these would certainly qualify as a new type of media, Miramax argues.

“Defendants’ arguments rely on an incomplete, misleading factual history of their contractual rights and a strained reading of those limited rights. Put simply, nonfungible tokens, which host and display unique content using blockchain technology, were not (and could not have been) contemplated by the parties in 1993,” Miramax writes.

‘More Infringements’

Whether that is indeed the case is up for the court to decide. However, the movie studio believes that there are plenty of reasons to continue the case. Aside from the screenplay rights disagreement, the NFT sale also used other images and artwork that were directly related to Pulp Fiction.

For example, the early artwork on TarantinoNFTs.com featured iconic depictions of Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta, which have since been replaced with an image of Tarantino himself.

In addition, several tweets from the Tarantino NFT team with alleged copyright-infringing material were deleted as well. The tweets are also listed as infringing examples in the legal paperwork. These alleged infringements alone should be sufficient to support a valid copyright claim, Miramax notes.

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A copy of Miramax’ objections and response to Tarantino’s motion is available here (pdf) .

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

The popularity of non-fungible tokens, NFTs for short, has reached new highs over the past year.

This has also drawn the attention of celebrities, some of whom agreed to tie their names and creations to these digital collectibles.

Last fall, Quentin Tarantino joined in as well. The movie director announced that he would auction ‘Pulp Fiction’ NFTs to the public. These NFTs will unlock handwritten scripts and exclusive custom commentary from Tarantino, assets that could prove valuable to collectors.

Miramax Sues over Pulp Fiction NFTs

Not everyone was happy with this plan though. Movie studio Miramax, which owns most of the rights to the film, sees the plan as a contract breach and copyright infringement. In a lawsuit filed at a California federal court last November, the movie company accused the director of attempting to cash in on something he doesn’t own the full rights to.

“Eager to cash in on the non-fungible token (‘NFT’) boom, as widely reported in the media, Quentin Tarantino recently announced plans to auction off seven ‘exclusive scenes’ from the 1994 motion picture Pulp Fiction in the form of NFTs,” the complaint read.

Despite this legal dispute, the first NFT was put up for auction early this year, selling for over a million dollars . After that, the project was put on hold, perhaps in part to await the outcome of the lawsuit.

Tarantino Wants the Lawsuit Dismissed

According to Tarantino, Miramax’s claims are ungrounded. His legal team previously described the claims as “ offensively meritless ” and this week they submitted a motion for judgment, seeking dismissal of the complaint in its entirety.

“Miramax’s copyright claim fails because it misapprehends fundamental principles of copyright law and ignores the clear language of the agreements and assignments,” Tarantino’s lawyers write.

The movie company suggests that by assigning the film’s copyright to Miramax, the director also gave up the rights to his screenplay. That’s not the case, the lawyers counter.

The Film is a Derivative

Tarantino sees the film as a derivative of the screenplay he personally wrote and still holds the rights to, not the other way around.

“Miramax’s complaint assumes that an assignment of copyrights in a motion picture encompasses an assignment of exclusive rights in the underlying screenplay for that motion picture. That turns copyright law on its head,” the lawyers write.

Even if Miramax could somehow show that, by giving up the film’s copyrights, Tarantino also transferred the exclusive rights for the underlying screenplay, that wouldn’t be sufficient. The agreements both parties have signed make it clear that the director didn’t give up the screenplay rights.

“At every turn, the parties bent over backwards to make clear that Mr. Tarantino was not assigning any rights in the Screenplay to Miramax,” Tarantino’s lawyers note.

Tarantino’s legal team makes it clear that the NFTs will not include any content from the film. They will be based on the screenplay which is still owned and copyrighted by the director.

“The Film is a derivative work created from the Screenplay, not the other way around. Because Mr. Tarantino never assigned any rights in the Screenplay to Miramax, Miramax’s copyright claim fails,” the lawyers reiterate.

‘Infringements’ Removed?

It is worth noting that when the TarantinoNFTs.com first launched, it included several film-inspired elements.

For example, the early artwork featured iconic depictions of Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta, which have since been replaced with an image of Tarantino himself. The original artwork was labeled as copyright-infringing by Miramax so this change appears to be a direct response to this claim.

In addition, several tweets from the Tarantino NFT team with alleged copyright-infringing material were deleted as well. These tweets are also listed as infringing examples in the legal paperwork.

It is now up to the court to decide whether there are sufficient grounds to dismiss the complaint or not. Before that happens, Miramax is expected to formally respond to Tarantino’s arguments.

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A copy of the motion for judgement on the pleadings is available here (pdf) and the proposed order to dismiss the case can be found here (pdf)

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.