Both Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino have been regarded as two of the biggest masterminds behind the entertainment industry’s quick proliferation. This isn’t news, considering how the pair have been managing to blow the audience’s mind with their blatantly successful, brilliant on-screen projects. Yet, they are also pretty competitive in terms of their work, which is clearly evident from almost every single award ceremony throughout the years.
Not only this, but besides excellent movie-making Spielberg has also managed to grow fiery prediction skills over the years, considering how he left fellow peer Tarantino stunned with his scarily accurate predictions about the latter’s $213 million Bruce Willis movie that inevitably came true!
Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, Duck Hunting, And Predictions
This goes nearly three decades back in 1995 when Quentin Tarantino was only just warming up in the industry. At the time, he got a call from Steven Spielberg asking him to go ‘duck hunting’ with them. Sharing the story with Howard Stern on The Howard Stern Show, he said,
“I went duck hunting with him once. I guess it was 1995 because the Oscars were coming up. Steven [Spielberg] called me up and goes, ‘Hey, Quentin, how would you like to go duck hunting with me and Bob Zemeckis and John Milius?’ I’m like, ‘F–k yeah, I would love to do that.’”
As it turned out, Spielberg had a whole other plan behind this duck-hunting trip with Tarantino, Robert (Bob) Zemeckis, and John Milius.
“I mean, I was just the new kid in town, and they were all really impressed with Pulp Fiction. But one of the things that Steven wanted to do was, ‘Look, you and Bob Zemeckis are going to be in competition the whole rest of this year. So before that competition starts, maybe it would be nice that we all go off and do something together.’ So we just kind of keep in mind that we’re all artists, and we’re all friendly.”
Steven Spielberg’s Blindly Shot Arrow Hit Right On Spot
Continuing, Tarantino revealed on The Howard Stern Show how something Spielberg said that day just kind of caught him off guard. He said,
“And then Spielberg said something that day. He said something that I hadn’t heard anybody say it quite that way before and made everything seem a little realer. I knew that when it came to the Oscars for Best Original Screenplay, we were most probably the most likely ones to win for Pulp Fiction at that time. And Spielberg, he prides himself on understanding the business, so he was talking to me very pragmatically.”
He then shared Spielberg’s predictions for his Bruce Willis starrer $213 million movie Pulp Fiction and Zemeckis’ Forrest Gump:
“He’s like, ‘So here’s what’s going to happen at the Oscars. [And we haven’t even been nominated yet.] I don’t think you’re going to win the Oscar. I think it’s going to be Bob who’s going to win Best Picture, and I think it’s going to be Bob who’s going to win Best Director. In fact, I’m pretty sure of it. But, I do think you will win Best Original Screenplay.’ And then he stopped and then turned around and looked at me and goes, ‘Second movie, little gold man, not too bad,’ and started walking [off].”
While Steven Spielberg’s predictions were stunningly scary, what was even more astounding was that Robert Zemeckis did, in fact, end up winning Academy Awards for Best Director as well as Best Picture for Forrest Gump, and Quentin Tarantino bagged the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Pulp Fiction!
Say what you want, the ‘Best Predictor’ award for 1995 goes to Steven Spielberg!
Source: The Howard Stern Show
