Tarantino finally calmed down after film leak

Director Quentin Tarantino told the Cannes Film Festival on Friday he had finally "calmed down" over the leaking of the script for his latest film project, "The Hateful Eight". Tarantino -- in Cannes to mark the 20th anniversary of "Pulp Fiction" scooping the festival's top Palme d'Or Prize -- was reunited on the red carpet with its stars John Travolta and Uma Thurman. "Pulp Fiction" won rave reviews after its premiere at the French Riviera movie extravaganza in May 1994, catapulting Tarantino to international stardom and revitalising Travolta's then flagging career. Speaking to reporters ahead of an anniversary screening, the US director said his anger over the script leak had now subsided and he was back working on another draft. "The knife-in-the-back wound is starting to scab, and I have calmed down on it," he said. The "Reservoir Dogs" and "Django Unchained" film-maker in January cancelled plans to start shooting the movie. "Exactly what I'm going to do, I don't know. I'm in the process of writing it, of finishing the second draft and then I intend to do a third draft," he said. "I'm in no hurry and maybe I'll shoot it, maybe I'll publish it. Maybe I'll do it on the stage... maybe I'll do all three, but we'll find out," he said. In April, a judge in Los Angeles threw out attempts by Tarantino to sue gossip website Gawker, which had provided an online link to the 146-page screenplay. Tarantino reportedly believed the screenplay was leaked by someone linked to the six people he had shared it with. Famed for its violence and witty script, "Pulp Fiction" featured two guns-for-hire and a prizefighter. It was released in the US five months after its Cannes win and following a massive publicity campaign. It became a world-wide hit, taking $213 million (£126 million, 156 million euro) at the box office. Tarantino told reporters in Cannes that he enjoyed presenting audiences with difficult-to-like characters like those in "Pulp Fiction". "I like... showing the worst sides of them, the most violent sides of them, the most deplorable sides of them," he said. "And goddammit, I'm going to get you to root for them anyway." He said his film-making could be seen as a reaction to the sort of films Hollywood made in the 1980s when studios demanded that characters had to be likeable. "(That) for me was the most repressive cinema to come out of Hollywood since the fifties," he said. "One of the ways that it was so oppressive was the fact that the Hollywood movie industry had this thing where it was like a mantra... characters had to be likeable and that was the most important thing. "If the audience didn't like them, if the audience wasn't on their side 100 percent of the time, then it was considered a failure and those movies never saw the light of day." Two decades on, Tarantino said it was difficult to underestimate the prestige winning the Palme d'Or had brought him. "What it does for you, as far as being one of the filmmakers of the world... is immeasurable,” he said. "Winning the Palme d'Or to this day is still... as far as laurels are concerned, my single absolutely, positively greatest achievement. "It's the one I want another one of, some day." Source: AFP