Quentin Tarantino came very close to directing some of Justified: City Primeval

Justified: City Primeval is a cause for celebration. The show is a cosmic gumbo of Elmore Leonard creations stewed to perfection in the style of FX’s brilliant Justified—and as we previously reported, we have Quentin Tarantino to thank, in part, for the series coming to fruition. We knew he almost directed some of the show, but in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, veteran Justified director and City Primeval co-showrunner Michael Dinner shares how close he came to directing an episode.

Dinner explains after Raylan Givens (Olyphant) and Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins) acknowledged their coal mining past and said their goodbyes in the series finale, Elmore Leonard’s son pitched Dinner on City Primeval, a Leonard novel set outside of the Raylan Givens series.

“I was in Italy shooting, and [Timothy Olyphant] called me up and said, ‘Quentin and I were sitting around on [the Once Upon A Time In Hollywood] set, and we were talking. Do you know City Primeval?’” Dinner said. “And I go, ‘Uh, yeah.’ And he goes, ‘Well, we were thinking it’d be a great year of Justified.’ And I said, ‘Well, that’s a great idea, Tim. I’ve actually been playing around with it.’”

Dinner said that though their “intention was never to involve [Tarantino] in it,” they thought asking him to direct an episode would be fun. “Dave and I actually sent him either the pilot or the first two episodes, and he loved it. He had a few thoughts, but it was just a few things,” Dinner said. “And then we slipped him the third and the fourth episodes, which he really loved. And so the intention was that he was gonna do an episode.”

While Tarantino backed out “for some private reasons,” his fingerprints are still in the show.

“He passed along a few notes for episode three, and we did pull out part of episode four and put it into [episode three]. It was kind of a deconstructive narrative in episode four, but we actually went back to that when he didn’t do it. We actually shot it as he would’ve shot it, and then we moved some of the stuff back. But he certainly was there in spirit. People who’ve done Elmore love doing Elmore, and he’s one of those people who completely understands Elmore’s work and Elmore’s world. So it would’ve been fun to do it with him, but it didn’t work out.”

Tarantino might have a chance to direct Raylan Givens in the future because Dinner said that they were already thinking about where Givens might go next. “I do think there’s a third chapter, in success, if the audience comes to this,” he said. “We’re waiting to see how that happens over the next couple weeks, and if FX wants to do another chapter, I think that Tim would want to do it.”

“Tim is Raylan and Raylan is Tim, and there’s an opportunity if someone wants us to do it again. I think that we can do it again.”

Maybe Tarantino can direct an episode next time—if he hasn’t retired by then.