While speaking at the Sundance Film Festival, Quentin Tarantino hinted that he may not start shooting his final movie until next year.

Quentin Tarantino was expected to start production on The Movie Critic, his tenth and final movie, last year, so fans were shocked when he decided to scrap the project and start from scratch. It remains to be seen what Tarantino’s final movie will be, but while speaking at the Sundance Film Festival (via Deadline), the director hinted that may not start the project until sometime next year… or perhaps even later.

“I’m in no hurry to jump into production right now, I’ve been doing that for 30 years,” Tarantino told the audience. “The idea of jumping on a voyage when they’re too young to understand it is not enticing to me. I kind of want to not do whatever movie I end up doing until my son is at least 6. That way he’ll know whats’ going on, he’ll be there,and it will be a memory for the rest of his life.” For the record, Tarantino’s son was born in 2020, which will make him six years old in 2026.

Tarantino did say he’s working on a play, which he hopes will be released in the next year. He said, “If that’s a smash hit, that might be my last movie.“

I still think it was a mistake to announce that he was going to quit after his tenth movie. Not to say he shouldn’t if that’s what he wants, but expectations are already sky-high for any Tarantino project, and this sent them skyrocketing to near-impossible-to-achieve levels. It might have been better to just make his film and say, “I’m out!” after the fact. That said, if anyone can pull off the triumphant exit, my money is on Tarantino.

Before Tarantino pulled the plug on The Movie Critic, there were plenty of rumours circling over what it would be and who would be in it. Tarantino himself said that it would be set in California in 1977 and be “based on a guy who really lived, but was never really famous, and he used to write movie reviews for a porno rag.” There was also talk that Brad Pitt would be starring in the film, with some saying that the actor would be reprising his role as stuntman Cliff Booth from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Other actors rumoured to be involved, or at least being considered, were Paul Walter Hauser, David Krumholtz, Olivia Wilde, and even Tom Cruise.

We still don’t know why Tarantino scrapped The Movie Critic, but those close to the director said that he “had grown more excited by other ideas.“