Quentin Tarantino Once Worked On An SNL Spinoff Movie With A Rare 0% RT Score

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I was really surprised to learn that Quentin Tarantino was involved in one of the most poorly received Saturday Night Live movies! It’s hard to believe, considering he’s known as one of the best directors and, in my opinion, an even better screenwriter in Hollywood. He’s been nominated for seven Oscars throughout his career, and he actually won two of them for his incredible writing.

Despite his later success, Tarantino directed a movie based on a Saturday Night Live sketch – a project he was very enthusiastic about. This happened after his first film, Reservoir Dogs, but before he became famous with Pulp Fiction. Although Tarantino is known for directing great movies, this one wasn’t well-received, earning a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Quentin Tarantino Did A Rewrite Of The SNL Movie, It’s Pat

Quentin Tarantino is a highly successful director, but he’s also a talented screenwriter. He did uncredited work on the script for Crimson Tide, contributing many of its pop culture references. Beyond directing, he fully wrote the screenplays for films like True Romance and From Dusk till Dawn.

He also wrote two scripts he probably isn’t very proud of. One was the first draft of Natural Born Killers, but Quentin Tarantino completely distanced himself from the final movie. The other was a film based on the Saturday Night Live character Pat, and while he doesn’t dislike it as much, he still considers it a low point in his career.

The movie It’s Pat comes from a famous Saturday Night Live sketch performed by Julia Sweeney. In the sketch, she played Pat, a character who dressed in plaid and didn’t clearly identify as male or female. The humor came from the audience wanting to know Pat’s gender, but the sketch always ended before the answer could be revealed. While the joke might not resonate as well today, Quentin Tarantino was a fan when it originally aired.

As a film buff, I always find the backstory of how movies get made fascinating. This one had a winding path before it finally found its director. Apparently, the script went through a lot of changes, and it wasn’t until 1993 that Quentin Tarantino got his hands on it. According to Variety back then, his version was the one the producers pitched to studios, and it really seemed to be the breakthrough they needed. What I especially love is that Tarantino added the element of this obsessive stalker relentlessly pursuing the main character – it’s such a key part of the tension!

Pat Ended Up As Saturday Night Live’s Worst Movie

Adam Bernstein directed the movie It’s Pat, based on a script by Julia Sweeney, Jim Emerson, and Stephen Hibbert. Quentin Tarantino did some uncredited rewriting for the film, much like he did with Crimson Tide. Unfortunately, It’s Pat wasn’t successful and currently has a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Despite an $8 million production budget, the *SNLbased comedy film flopped at the box office, earning just $60,822. A major issue was Fox’s lack of confidence in the movie, leading them to release it in only 33 theaters – all located in Seattle, Spokane, and Houston – before quickly making it available for home viewing seven months later.

The movie was a critical and commercial failure. Reviews were overwhelmingly negative, with Variety calling it unfunny and the Los Angeles Times acknowledging a good message but criticizing its poor execution. Even a director as talented as Quentin Tarantino wouldn’t have been able to fix it.

Quentin Tarantino Explains His Love Of Pat

What’s especially sad is that Quentin Tarantino was a big fan of the “It’s Pat” sketch from Saturday Night Live. He agreed to help rewrite the movie hoping to improve the story and showcase the character’s potential, and he discussed this in a 1994 interview with Playboy.

Pat’s androgynous qualities are just one reason people like the character. Personally, I find Pat incredibly irritating, and that’s what makes them so compelling.

Tarantino admitted he didn’t know Pat’s gender, but he always envisioned the character as female. He recalled a sketch Pat did with Harvey Keitel, where they shared a kiss, and noted that Pat’s kiss felt feminine, not masculine. “Pat didn’t kiss like a guy,” Tarantino explained, “Pat kissed like a girl.”

The film continued the joke from the original sketch of keeping Chris’s true identity hidden, casting Dave Floey in the role to maintain the air of mystery. Ultimately, Pat married this disguised version of Chris. The filmmakers even hinted at intimate moments, with both characters briefly shown without clothes, but these scenes were carefully framed so the audience didn’t actually see anything explicit.

That could be the issue. Quentin Tarantino liked that the character Pat was deliberately annoying, but that wasn’t the main idea of the film or the scenes. The story was meant to show that gender doesn’t really matter, and what’s important is simply being comfortable with who you are.

Quentin Tarantino Has Still Never Made A Comedy Movie

Given the poor reception of this new film – with an audience score of only 30% – it’s understandable why Quentin Tarantino doesn’t often make comedies. While his films often include edgy and provocative humor that fits well within crime thrillers, it doesn’t translate effectively to more mainstream comedic films.

Films like Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, The Hateful Eight, and Django Unchained contain moments of sharp, dark humor. But this humor isn’t meant to be laugh-out-loud funny; it’s used to relieve tension and create a different kind of effect.

Sources: Variety, Los Angeles Times, Playboy

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2025-11-02 04:09