By Hillel Italie, National Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --Quentin Tarantino's next work of imagination will be in book form.
The Oscar-winning director has a two-book deal with Harper, beginning with a novelization of "Once Upon a Time … In Hollywood" that is scheduled for next summer. "Once Upon a Time" will be a true Tarantino production: The book will come out first as a mass market paperback, like the old pulp novels the filmmaker loves, and will offer "a fresh, playful and shocking departure from the film," according to Harper.
The film version of "Once Upon a Time … In Hollywood" was released in 2019 and stars Leonardo DiCaprio as an actor and Brad Pitt as his stunt double. Nominated for 10 Academy Awards and winner of two, the movie is set in Los Angeles in 1969, around the time of the killings by Charles Manson's followers.
"In the '70s movie novelizations were the first adult books I grew up reading," Tarantino said in a statement Tuesday. "And to this day I have a tremendous amount of affection for the genre. So as a movie-novelization aficionado, I'm proud to announce 'Once Upon a Time … In Hollywood' as my contribution to this often marginalized, yet beloved sub-genre in literature. I'm also thrilled to further explore my characters and their world in a literary endeavor that can (hopefully) sit alongside its cinematic counterpart."
Tarantino's second book will be the nonfiction "Cinema Speculation," which Harper is calling "a deep dive into the movies of the 1970's" that draws in part on the director's admiration for the late New Yorker critic Pauline Kael. A release date has not been determined.
"The book will be a rich mix of essays, reviews, personal writing, and tantalizing "what if's," from one of cinema's most celebrated filmmakers, and its most devoted fan," according to Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
Several directors have written fiction in recent years, including Brian De Palma, David Cronenberg and Guillermo del Toro, and Michael Mann has been working on a prequel to his crime classic "Heat." Tarantino, 57, may well have more time in the future for books.
He has said that he will retire from filmmaking after he completes 10 movies: "Once Upon a Time … In Hollywood" was his 9th. Tarantino had not turned 30 when he made his first feature-length film, "Reservoir Dogs," and he has claimed most directors lose their edge in their later years. Writing has long been part of his transition plans.
"I think when it comes to theatrical movies, I've come to the end of the road," Tarantino, who has yet to announce plans for his next film, told GQ Australia last year. "I see myself writing film books and starting to write theater, so I'll still be creative. I just think I've given all I have to give to movies."
AP Film Writer Jake Coyle contributed to this report.
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults — two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
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