Quentin Tarantino is bringing a long-lost Kill Bill chapter to life, and this time it’s happening inside the world of Fortnite.
The filmmaker has teamed up with Epic Games to release The Lost Chapter: Yuki’s Revenge, an animated short starring Uma Thurman as The Bride.
For Tarantino, it fulfills a 20-year wish to revisit a section of the original script that never made it on screen.
The eight-minute short was made using Unreal Engine’s technology and motion capture.
It will also play in theaters as part of the limited run of Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair.
Speaking at his Vista Theater in Los Angeles, Tarantino shared how the collaboration began.
He originally thought Epic Games just wanted to license his characters.
“They got together with me to talk about some situation where my characters and Fortnite do something kind of groovy,” he said. But when he arrived, they pitched something very different.
They asked if he had anything around eight to twelve minutes “that could be good for our purposes and make sure your iconic characters are wrapped up inside this.”
It turned out Tarantino already had the perfect piece: a chapter written in the very first draft of Kill Bill that never went further.
Gogo Yubari was meant to have a twin sister named Yuki. “It never even made second drafts,” he said. The idea was cut for pacing reasons. “It was too crazy, too violent, and just too much action.”
Tarantino admitted he didn’t think he’d ever get to revisit it.
“I actually thought maybe the ship had sailed as far as, like doing new material. I was wrong.” He added that Yuki had “been a figment of my imagination for over 20 years.”
Uma Thurman also surprised the audience by appearing at the event. She explained how motion capture allowed her to truly perform as The Bride again.
Wearing head-mounted cameras and sensors, she said she eventually forgot the equipment was there. “I completely forgot about it; just started to live in the moments of the scenes we were doing.”
Thurman loved that the project makes the story accessible in a new way. “This is a new audience for the movie,” she said. “It’s really moving. It’s really great, and I think it’s something meant to be.”
Fortnite isn’t the only return for the iconic assassin. Lionsgate is releasing The Whole Bloody Affair in theaters on December 5.
For Tarantino, the crossover is meant to bridge generations of fans.
“I want both the Kill Bill fan and the Fortnite fan to be totally effing happy about this collaboration.”
