What Happened to Kill Bill 3? What to Know About Lost Tarantino Sequel

After setting the film scene ablaze in the ’90s with rule-bending efforts like Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown, writer-director Quentin Tarantino entered the new millennium with a plan to really show off his stuff. And he did just that in 2003 with the vengeance-fueled Kill Bill, which allowed the filmmaker to fully flex his heightened and kaleidoscopic approach to visual storytelling that’s made him a revered Hollywood legend.

Made on a budget of $30 million (the director’s largest at the time), it was a dizzying cinema elixir; an ever-changing genre animal combining everything from ’70s kung fu movies and the samurai epics of Akira Kurosawa to the bold colors and frenetic energy of comic books and anime. Kill Bill was truly like no other action flick ever made — before or since — and it was only the first chapter in a two-part saga. The sophomore installment proved to be just as bombastic, audacious, and wildly original as its predecessor when the sequel arrived in theaters six months later in the spring of 2004.

As we now know, the duology (airing on SYFY this week) was a critical, financial, and most importantly, cultural success, with Tarantino cementing himself as a bona fide auteur. Over the last two decades, fans have wondered whether the story would continue, and while Kill Bill: Volume 3 once seemed like a real possibility, the chances of a trilogy capper have decreased with each passing year.

The winding history of Quentin Tarantino’s unmade Kill Bill: Volume 3

Plans for a Kill Bill trilogy go back to the release of Volume 1 over 20 years when Tarantino told Entertainment Weekly that he wanted not only to make a third movie, but also to expand the story beyond Uma Thurman‘s character (known only as The Bride).

“Initially I was thinking this would be my ‘Dollars’ trilogy,” he said, referring to the trio of spaghetti Westerns made by his idol, Sergio Leone. “I was going to do a new one every 10 years. But I need at least 15 years before I do this again. Uma won’t be the star, though she’ll be in it. The star will be Vernita Green’s [Vivica A. Fox] daughter, Nikki [Ambrosia Kelley]. I’ve already got the whole mythology: Sofie Fatale [Julie Dreyfus] will get all of Bill’s money. She’ll raise Nikki, who’ll take on The Bride. Nikki deserves her revenge every bit as much as the Bride deserved hers. I might even shoot a couple of scenes for it now so I can get the actresses while they’re this age. It’s exciting to know that somewhere there’s a little girl who’ll grow up to be my leading lady.”

In 2009, Tarantino reportedly stated at the Morelia International Film Festival that Kill Bill: Volume 3 would be his follow-up to Inglourious Basterds and center around the Bride and her daughter, B.B. That obviously wasn’t the case once it became clear the director was returning to the historical well for 2012’s Django Unchained. That same year, he cast serious doubt over a third installment, telling We Got This Covered: “I don’t know if there’s ever going to be a Kill Bill. Vol 3. We’ll see, probably not though.”

He seemed to backpedal slightly two years later while in conversation with Variety, saying, “I’m not committing to it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if The Bride made one more appearance before the whole thing is said and done. I am talking to Uma about it just a little bit. Some of the stuff that I’d written that never made it into the movie that maybe I could use.”

Four years later, Tarantino admitted that he and Thurman were still talking about it and that if he were to revisit any one of his movies, it would be Kill Bill. After working with Thurman’s daughter, Maya Hawke, on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the director began mulling over the idea of casting the familial duo as the Bride and a grown-up B.B., respectively.

“I think it’s just revisiting the characters 20 years later,” he told Joe Rogan (via The Hollywood Reporter). “Just imagining the Bride and her daughter B.B. having 20 years of peace, and then that peace is shattered and then the Bride and B.B. are on the run. The idea of casting Uma and casting her daughter, Maya, and the thing would be f***ing exciting. I mean, Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) is still out there, Sophie Fatale (Julie Dreyfus) got her arms cut off, she’s still out there. They all got Bill’s money. Gogo (Chiaki Kuriyama) had a twin sister, her twin sister could show up.”

“I originally thought I would do three Kill Bill movies, one every ten years,” he said in 2021. “Uma will be 10 years older with each new one. And also, I’ll do an anime movie that follows this aspect of the Bride when she was with the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. And then I’ll do a whole animation movie that will be the origin of Bill and his three Godfathers [Hatori Hanso, Pei Mei, and Esteban Vihaio]. The reason they never happened? OK, well, I f—ing killed myself on Kill Bill, went around the world, I don’t want to think about that sh** anymore.'”

Both Kill Bill: Volume 1 and Kill Bill: Volume 2 are airing on SYFY this week. Click here for complete scheduling info!