Pulp Fiction Case Study

Director  - Quentin Tarantino

Writer – Quentin Tarantino, Roger Avary

Cast – John Travolta, Samuel L Jackson, Bruce Willis and Christopher Walken among others.

Genre - Crime

Release Date – October 1994

Budget - $8.5 Million

Revenue - £212.19 Million

Inspiration - The initial inspiration for pulp fiction was the three-part horror anthology film Black Sabbath (1963) from which the idea of the 3 interlinking plots within the film was gained. This inspiration for the “golden watch” segment of the story was taken from a previous work of Avary "Pandemonium Reigns".  Two scenes originally from true romance (Work of Roger Avary, but did not feature in the final cut) were also drafted into pulp fiction and redeveloped to fit the plot.

·         Directed by Quentin Tarantino, a director known for previous successful films such as reservoir dogs. This would be appealing to an aspiring financer, because as a director, Tarantino had a grand reputation, and this therefore leads to the potential of achieving a good profit

·         As a co-writer, Roger Avary, had previously wrote true romance. This meant that to a potential financer the film had a great deal of promise in terms of generating a successful plot.

·         The film stars established actors such as John Travolta, Samuel L Jackson, and Bruce Willis. When it came to selecting john Travolta to play the lead role, there was a great deal of scepticism due largely to fact he had not starred in a successful film for sometime. Despite this he reputation amongst film viewers remained high as a result of the successful films that he had been in, and he eventually repaid the trust that was placed upon him in the form of an academy award nominated performance. There were also questions raised when Uma Thurman was cast as “Mia Wallace” the husband of the crime lord “Marcell Wallace”, as she was a previously unknown actor with little acting experience so nobody knew what to expect. Quentin however expertly moulded her into her role as a mysterious women, who has come from nowhere into the limelight as the “big mans wife”, this is also retrospective of her career, where she was also cast into fame from nothing.

·         The 3 interloping plots was also a key selling point to the film, as it had not yet previously done on a box office level, with any success.  This in itself meant that if successful, pulp fiction would near enough be a unique film.

·         There was also the opportunity of producing merchandise to sell after the films release. This came in the form of the specially selected soundtrack, and t-shirts featuring captions and images from the film, such as the iconic pistol pose (John Travolta and Samuel L Jackson). Altogether this added to the chance of producing more revenue for the potential investors.