Thank Goodness Here’s Why Quentin Tarantino Didn’t Make a Luke Cage Movie

We’re thrilled that Luke Cage is being brought to life on Netflix by the amazing Mike Colter. Imagine, if you will, an alternate universe in which Quentin Tarantino made the Luke Cage movie he wanted to make in the 1990s. *shudders*

In a recent interview on the Nerdist podcast, Tarantino discussed his favorite comics and talked about that time when he was actually working on a Luke Cage adaptation. He even got far enough that he started talking to Ed Pressman, who holds the rights to Luke Cage. However, what ultimately made him decide to not do it was disagreements over casting:

In the case of Luke Cage, it was my comic geek friends that almost talked me out of it, because I thought Larry Fishburne back in the day would’ve been a great Luke Cage, and they were talking about Wesley Snipes. And I could see them both, but it was like ‘I think Fish would be better.’ And they go ‘Yeah… he could work out and everything, but he doesn’t have the bod that Wesley Snipes has, and Luke Cage needs to have the bod.’

And I literally was so turned off that that would be their both starting and ending point, that it literally put it in my head that, if I do a comic book movie, it should be an original character. It should be something I create rather than try to fit in.

Well, Tarantino scrapped that project and ended up doing Pulp Fiction instead, so I think that worked out best for everyone. I think it’s interesting, too, that he balked at the idea of a male character being chosen, in part, because of his body, when I can’t remember a time when Tarantino ever cast, say, a fat woman in a movie. Or hell, even one that wasn’t conventionally attractive in some way. But Luke Cage needing to have a certain body type? That’s where you draw the line?

What do you all think? Would you have wanted to see a Tarantino-directed Luke Cage movie starring Lawrence Fishburne back in the day? Would you want to see a Tarantino-directed Luke Cage film now? Do you think he’d do justice to the modern Luke Cage we’ve come to know and love in Mike Colter, or do you think he’d have to do it blaxploitation-style? Tell us in the comments below!

(via Uproxx; Image via Gage Skidmore/Flickr)

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