Quentin Tarantino and Oliver Stone Feuded Over This Movie for Decades

By early 1993, having made his feature film debut the year before with Reservoir Dogs and gearing up for his sophomore effort with Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino‘s career was on the rise. He’d also sold two original screenplays, True Romance and Natural Born Killers, the latter of which was about to enter production with Oliver Stone directing. The following year, Stone’s film about two mass murderers who become celebrities was released to a polarized reception. Controversial and over-the-top, Natural Born Killers‘ satirical take on modern society’s morbid obsession with true crime is, as Stone once described it, “a total Rosetta Stone of the early ’90s in America” that remains a prophetic product of an evolving, twisted media landscape. Quentin Tarantino, however, considered Natural Born Killers a bastardization of his screenplay, leading to a decades-long public feud with Oliver Stone over his intense disapproval of the 1994 film.

What Did Oliver Stone Do With Quentin Tarantino’s Original ‘Natural Born Killers’ Screenplay?

Quentin Tarantino’s original iteration of Natural Born Killers largely revolved around broadcaster Wayne Gale (Robert Downey Jr.) as he seeks to boost his profile by capitalizing on the shocking crimes committed by homicidal lovebirds Mickey (Woody Harrelson) and Mallory Knox (Juliette Lewis). Wordy, violent, and featuring a cultural underbelly of mayhem populated by colorful characters, Tarantino’s screenplay provides an early glimpse into many of the storytelling sensibilities he’d become famous for. But after Natural Born Killers was bought for a reported $10,000 and made its way into Oliver Stone’s hands, Tarantino’s written groundwork for a rollicking exploitation film was reworked into something more consciously reflective of society at large. “When Quentin wrote those two characters, Mikey and Mallory, they were originally based on, I guess, Bonnie and Clyde,” Stone said of the original screenplay. “It was mostly about the TV journalist, and Mickey and Mallory were just sort of crazy, stick figures.”

Having originally intended to direct Natural Born Killer as a straightforward action-packed thriller, Oliver Stone decided to pivot. Known for digging beneath the narrative surface to explore heady subtext, be it in a political, historical, or societal context, Stone eventually saw Natural Born Killers as an opportunity to comment on the American media’s increasing and unsettling fixation on criminals and murderers like Mickey and Mallory. Taking inspiration from the notorious trials of O.J. Simpson and the Menendez Brothers, as well as scandalous news stories involving Tanya Harding and Lorena Bobbitt, the filmmaker re-worked Tarantino’s screenplay with writer David Veloz and associate producer Richard Rutowski in hopes of fulfilling his creative and thematic aspirations. “I want another level of socio-political comment and I want to deal with the whole justice system,” he later said.

Why Did Quentin Tarantino Hate ‘Natural Born Killers’?

When Natural Born Killers hit theaters on August 26, 1994, Quentin Tarantino was anything but pleased, and he wasn’t alone in attacking Stone’s film. Sharply dividing critics, Natural Born Killers was lambasted by some as an exhausting, overly-stylized exercise in hollow social commentary, while others appreciated its aggressively bold approach to satirizing the American media and society’s degrading obsession with lurid news stories. As is the case with many of Oliver Stone’s films, no one could accuse Natural Born Killers of being dull or lacking ambition, but as the spark that ignited the proverbial fire, Quentin Tarantino didn’t hold back in objecting to what his original screenplay had morphed into. “I hated that fucking movie,” he famously said. “If you like my stuff, don’t watch that movie.”

Why did Quentin Tarantino hate Natural Born Killers? His generalized loathing of the film leaves much to be desired, especially considering he’s also claimed to have never seen it in its entirety. But it’s safe to assume that Tarantino, having always harbored a passionate reverence and affection for the material he writes, didn’t like the idea of another filmmaker changing the vision he’d crafted with the written word. Tarantino has described writing Natural Born Killers as an effort to “make it on the page, so when you read it, you saw the movie, and it was like, why didn’t he do at least half of that? It was, like, done for him.” His reaction to the final film, particularly its treatment of Mickey and Mallory’s relationship and narrative diversion into a socio-political realm, suggests a perception of creative betrayal and misinterpretation. Given Tarantino’s tendency to express strong and unapologetic opinions, his dissatisfaction with the film likely made him wary of ceding control of his work to someone else, further cementing his artistic convictions and need for creative autonomy.

Oliver Stone Defended His Vision for ‘Natural Born Killers’

Oliver Stone is no stranger to receiving criticism that veers into vitriolic territory, and in the three decades since Natural Born Killers‘ release, he has stood by the film. Despite its polarizing nature, it grossed $50 million at the domestic box office and has since found a broader audience via home video and critical reappraisal, with viewers lauding its scathing take on the American media’s relationship with and effect on its consumers. Stone has never wavered in defending his vision for Natural Born Killers, especially as numerous crimes alleged to have been inspired by the film occurred in the years since its release. While he has always maintained the film was intended as a satirical and unrealistic representation of violence, he has also publicly commented on Quentin Tarantino’s open disdain for Natural Born Killers on numerous occasions.

“I think he was hurt that I rewrote it so much,” Stone said of Tarantino in 1994. “But I told him that I really can’t make what he, as a 26-year-old, would make as a first film. As a 47-year-old filmmaker, it doesn’t interest me.” He further acknowledged that Tarantino was paid handsomely for his screenplay and that he was disappointed about the up-and-coming filmmaker publicly bashing the film without giving it a fair shake. “All over the world — everywhere we went — we were hurt by the critics with him saying we had rewritten the script,” says Stone. “He hadn’t even seen the movie, but he was commenting on me, saying stuff about my films. It was just outrageous.”

Whether Quentin Tarantino has, in fact, ever seen Natural Born Killers from beginning to end remains a mystery. Whether his thoughts and feelings on the film have evolved or changed over time is an even bigger mystery, but what’s clear is he wasn’t destined to write material for other filmmakers to interpret and translate to the screen. At the same time, Oliver Stone has never been one to shy away from his visionary desires and impulses as a maverick filmmaker, so perhaps it was inevitable that the marriage between his and Tarantino’s storytelling sensibilities would create conflict.

Natural Born Killers is available to stream on Max in the U.S.

Watch on Max