What we all really wanted was a cameo from that late-’60s-era Taco Bell. We don’t get that yet in the brand-new trailer for The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth.
Netflix has given us another look at Brad Pitt returning as everyone’s favorite stuntman-turned-problem-solver. Directed by David Fincher and written by Quentin Tarantino, the follow-up to Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood sends Cliff into the seedy underbelly of 1977 Los Angeles.
He’s traded stunt work for a rather questionable collection of Hollywood side hustles, and apparently the people who need his services aren’t always the kind you want showing up at your front door.
The trailer opens with Cliff waking up and thinking about the time he kicked Bruce Lee’s ass. Some things never leave a guy’s reputation alone. He throws on another excellent Hawaiian shirt and heads off to work as a projectionist at the New Beverly Cinema.
Unfortunately, the Bruce Lee story is still following him around. Cliff insists the whole thing has been blown out of proportion, which is an interesting response considering the original fight in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood was a fictional sequence that caused a very real controversy. Bruce Lee’s daughter, Shannon Lee, objected to her father’s portrayal as an arrogant show-off who gets beaten up by Cliff. Tarantino defended the scene and made it clear he wasn’t going to apologize. Now Cliff appears to be stuck explaining the incident all over again, even eight years after the events of the first movie.
Working at a movie theater isn’t Cliff’s only source of income. He’s also apparently become something of a Hollywood bag man, using the theater as a place to exchange illicit packages while handling dirty business for people who would rather not get their hands dirty themselves.
We also see him working as an actor’s assistant, getting involved in a demolition derby, and dealing with the kind of trouble that requires a stuntman’s particular set of skills. The demolition derby footage immediately brought back memories of Fonzie getting behind the wheel in the Happy Days three-part “Fonzie Loves Pinky” storyline. Tarantino is a big fan of the series, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that little bit of automotive mayhem scratches a nostalgic itch for him, too.
One of the biggest changes is that Cliff is no longer doubling for Rick Dalton. When asked what happened to that working relationship, he gives a pretty straightforward answer: Rick got too fat for him to double anymore. Ouch.
Instead, Cliff finds himself working for television actor Charlie Peters, played by Scott Caan. Peters gets tangled up with Filipino gangsters, and his problems eventually become Cliff’s problems. Elizabeth Debicki, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Carla Gugino, Peter Weller, and Timothy Olyphant are also part of the expanded cast.
We get glimpses of Cliff in several different wardrobe choices, all of which look right at home on a character who seems to have spent the last eight years collecting jobs, stories, and questionable acquaintances. There’s also what appears to be a Blaxploitation movie being made within the movie, giving Tarantino an opportunity to play around with the genre without having to make an entire Blaxploitation feature himself. That’s almost like getting two movies for the price of one.
And speaking of movie theaters, the New Beverly Cinema deserves a little attention here. The building at 7165 Beverly Boulevard has had quite a history, serving at various times as a vaudeville house, candy factory, beer parlor, Jewish community center, and celebrity nightclub. It eventually became the repertory movie theater that Los Angeles film fans know today when Sherman Torgan took over the shuttered theater in 1978.
There’s an interesting wrinkle in the movie’s timeline, since the story takes place in 1977, just before the New Beverly’s repertory era began. Quentin Tarantino spent years supporting the theater before becoming its owner and head programmer, continuing its tradition of screening classic, foreign, independent, and cult movies. It’s a fitting place for Cliff to spend his working hours, even if his particular business dealings are a little less wholesome than the usual double feature.
The actual theater itself proved to be too small for Fincher’s film crew, so the exterior and lobby were shot at the Highland Theater in Highland Park, and the projection booth was shot on a sound stage. All befitting a movie about Hollywood’s inside game.
The new trailer gives us a much better sense of the movie’s personality. Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood was a sun-drenched fairy tale about a changing industry, while The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth looks like a grimier crime story about the people who keep that industry running.
Fincher is directing Tarantino’s screenplay, with Pitt back in the role that earned him an Academy Award. The film will receive an exclusive two-week IMAX theatrical run beginning November 25, 2026, before arriving on Netflix on December 23. One catch for the big-screen crowd: Regal and Cinemark have opted not to show it on their IMAX screens, so the theatrical rollout won’t be quite as widespread as the announcement might suggest.
I’m still holding out hope that the next trailer gives us another look at that beautiful old Taco Bell from Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood. The production brought a former Taco Bell building in Tustin back to its late-1960s appearance for the 2019 film, and its brief appearance in the movie’s nighttime montage was one of those little period details that made the whole thing feel like a trip through a very specific version of Los Angeles.
Cliff Booth may have a new job and a whole new collection of criminals to deal with, but a return visit to that Taco Bell would be a welcome bit of business. In the meantime, I’ll happily take another two minutes of Brad Pitt getting into trouble in 1977 Hollywood. You just know Star Wars is going to get mentioned. And probably not with a smile.
