While Quentin Tarantino is best known for directing the movies he writes, there have been some stories written by him that were left in the hands of others, but they still have a connection with other Tarantino works, as is the case of True Romance, Natural Born Killers, and Pulp Fiction. Tarantino’s career in the film industry began in 1992 with the crime movie Reservoir Dogs, but his big break arrived two years later with Pulp Fiction, which made him a widely-known and respected name in the industry. Since then, Tarantino has explored different genres in his movies, but he has also written some stories that weren’t directed by him.
So far, all movies directed by Tarantino have been written by him and have been original works, with the exception of Jackie Brown, which is an adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s 1992 novel Rum Punch. This is why Jackie Brown lives in its own universe, separate from the one where the rest of Tarantino’s works can be found, including those movies that were written but not directed by him, as is the case of True Romance. However, there’s another one that originated in Tarantino’s mind but went through so many rewrites that he decided to only take a “story by” credit: Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers. Still, the movie, and obviously more so its original version, has connections to the wider Tarantino movie universe and shares an origin with the acclaimed Pulp Fiction.
It all began with True Romance, a romantic crime movie directed by Tony Scott and starring Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette. True Romance was released between Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction and wasn’t directed by Tarantino as he lost interest in it and sold the script instead, though he has said he’s happy with how it turned out. As it happens with many movies during the writing process, True Romance began as one thing and had to go through many changes before it became a story that could be turned into a movie, so Tarantino had to cut a lot of scenes and characters out. According to FlavorWire, at one point Clarence (Slater) was writing a screenplay while traveling across the country with his wife Alabama (Arquette), and the story he had in mind is what ended up being Natural Born Killers – Tarantino’s version of it, that is.
Now, one of the biggest differences between Tarantino’s version of Natural Born Killers and Oliver Stone’s final product is that in Tarantino’s the main character was Wayne Gale (ultimately played by Robert Downey Jr), accompanied by his crew Scott (cameraman), Roger (soundman), and Julie (assistant). Their first appearance was in a restaurant described as “adorned with the standard Denny’s décor” with the characters’ actions “to be played at a rapid-fire His Girl Friday pace”. This scene was changed and used for Pumpkin (Tim Roth) and Honey Bunny’s (Amanda Plummer) introduction in Pulp Fiction, which happens at a dinner with the aforementioned characteristics and at a similar pace.
There are a couple of characters from Tarantino’s movie universe who are connected in some way, so it’s not surprising that characters from True Romance, Natural Born Killers, and Pulp Fiction share an origin, though this might be one that isn’t widely known. It’s easy to forget that True Romance and Natural Born Killers are both stories created by Quentin Tarantino, but it’s a fun piece of trivia knowing that one made way for the other and the latter had a scene that became one of the most memorable moments of what’s often regarded as Tarantino’s best movie.