Whatever Happened to Tarantino's Luke Cage Movie?

Photo courtesy JoBlo

      Shortly after the Luke Cage Netflix series premiered in 2016, Tarantino revealed in an interview that he nearly made a film adaptation of everyone's favorite Hero for Hire back in the 1990s. I'm not necessarily a die-hard fan of Tarantino (although Django Unchained was fantastic), but of all of Hollywood's tales of lost films, this is one of the most intriguing.

     In the interview, Tarantino said he would have liked to have cast Laurence Fishburne as Luke, which would have been amazing given Fishburne's versatility as an actor and Luke Cage's penchant for combining comedy with drama. Tarantino's comic-loving friends, however, thought Wesley Snipes would make a better Luke Cage, given his physique, and this frustrated Tarantino so much that he decided his efforts would be better spent creating original material than adapting existing characters.

     But what would his version have looked like, anyway? While expressing a little disapproval of the current Luke Cage Netflix series, Tarantino explained to Yahoo, 

     I’m not really that open to a rethinking on who he was. I just think that first issue, that origin issue … was so good, and it was really Marvel’s attempt to try to do a blaxsploitation movie vibe as one of their superhero comics.... So, just take that Issue 1 and put it in script form and do that.

     Here's where the speculation begins. We know he wanted to stay true to the character's original appearance, so the film would probably take place in the '70s, and Fishburne would likely be wearing the classic yellow suit and metal tiara. If he actually meant it literally when he said you could base a movie around Luke Cage: Hero for Hire #1, the film would probably show Luke's origins in prison, including when Billy Bob Rackham, a prison guard and notorious white supremacist, tries to torture him with a machine, but instead accidentally makes his skin bulletproof. Tarantino would likely have amped up Billy Bob to a full-on caricature, satirizing racism today.

     Luke would be the jive-talking Hero for Hire we know and love -- and emphasis on for Hire. I'm sure Fishburne's Luke might not begin as saintly a hero as Mike Colter's version did, and it might start out feeling a tad... mercenary. (Think Django Unchained. Gosh, that's a good movie.) 

     And if we're still following issue 1, our villain would probably be Diamondback, Luke's childhood friend and expert at using incredibly unrealistic knives that blow up or release toxic gas, you know, like knives do. If I were Tarantino, I'd cast Samuel L. Jackson in this role. Only he can turn that kind of campy theatricality into something cool. Even though Tarantino only mentioned issue 1, I also can't see him passing up the chance to use Misty Knight, one of the best fighters in the entire Marvel universe. (Would it be too on-the-nose to cast the legendary Pam Grier?)

     Knowing Tarantino, the film wouldn't just be peppered with swear words or bathed in gore (read: rated R), but it would also feature lots of long dialogue-filled scenes. It would also probably pay visual homage many of the films that inspired Luke Cage, like the Shaft franchise. There would be a killer soundtrack; in addition to some music that fits with the time period, I'm thinking we'd also get some anachronistic '90s hip-hop. (But who's complaining?)

     Not to say that there wouldn't be lots of violence as well, as is one of Tarantino's trademarks. And just because Cage is bulletproof, doesn't mean the other characters won't end up on the wrong end of a weapon. (Given Tarantino's love of the revenge narrative, I'm willing to bet Billy Bob Rackham is going to wish he had never messed with Luke Cage.) Also, if he were to use Misty Knight in the film, there's a good chance she might lose her arm so she can come back looking like this:

     But the most interesting thing about this abandoned project is the impact it could have had on the entire superhero "genre." If it were successful, it could have showed Hollywood that superhero movies can tell a variety of different stories across different genres. They can be PG-13 or rated R; they can be campy and fun, dark and gritty, or something in between, like Tarantino's usual body of work. The film would also have a lot more freedom (hopefully) than current superhero movies would since it wouldn't have been burdened with setting up a cinematic universe, except you know, the Tarantino universe. (Which is an actual thing. Look it up.) It also could have made Luke Cage a household name. It could have been the Logan of its time, or at least the Chronicle. But, as is the case with all of these stories, we will never know for sure.