Fincher Says He Cut 60 Pages From Tarantino’s Cliff Booth Script

David Fincher says the first Cliff Booth screenplay he read ran 230 pages, and that he cut around 60 pages. In Empire’s October 20 interview preview, Fincher and screenwriter Quentin Tarantino describe how they shaped The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth into a different kind of Hollywood crime story.

What Fincher says changed

Empire reports an approximately two-hour-and-20-minute film following the script reduction. Fincher describes the long draft as effectively containing two movies, with the eventual focus reflecting areas of shared interest between him, Tarantino and star Brad Pitt.

The page count concerns screenplay development. It does not establish that 60 minutes of footage were removed, identify scenes that were filmed and deleted, or announce an extended cut. Empire’s preview does not detail the discarded material.

Tarantino contrasts the new script’s crime-paperback character with the more leisurely structure of Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood. He invokes Elmore Leonard as a tonal comparison; that is not a claim that the new film adapts a Leonard novel. Fincher, meanwhile, emphasizes the collision of people in Hollywood’s back alleys.

Those comments come from Empire’s published preview of its joint interview, rather than an independently examined screenplay or a Red Reactions screening.

The confirmed film behind the interview

Netflix’s official synopsis places Cliff in 1977, eight years after the earlier film’s 1969 setting. Pitt returns as Cliff, now working as a Hollywood fixer alongside bartending and projectionist jobs. Fincher directs; Tarantino wrote the screenplay.

The new ensemble includes Elizabeth Debicki, Scott Caan, Carla Gugino, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Peter Weller. The production comments above do not reveal which of their characters featured in removed script material.

When does Cliff Booth reach IMAX and Netflix?

Those dates come from Netflix’s release announcement. “Global IMAX” does not promise a screening in every city or country.

Our existing official-trailer guide covers the footage and named characters. The image here is reused September trailer artwork, not a newly released October scene. Tarantino’s separate tenth-film script update concerns his own next directing project.