This Is the Kevin Costner Movie Quentin Tarantino Couldn’t Stop Watching

Before Quentin Tarantino became one of Hollywood’s biggest directors, he was just a serious movie fan looking for something great to watch. He watched everything he could find, and some of the movies that stayed with him were far from famous.

One of those movies was Fandango, a 1985 road trip comedy-drama directed by Kevin Reynolds. The movie starred a young Kevin Costner, years before he became a major Hollywood star. It was not a big hit when it came out, but Tarantino loved it so much that he went back to the theater five times.

That is pretty impressive when you consider that Fandango was only in theaters for a very short time. Tarantino talked about his love for the movie during a 1994 interview with Vanity Fair around the release of Pulp Fiction. He remembered exactly how many times he had seen it.

“I saw Fandango five times at the movie theatre, and it only played for a fucking week, all right? Five times I saw it!”

Tarantino did not just enjoy the movie. He also had huge respect for Reynolds as a filmmaker. He described Fandango as “one of the best directorial debuts in the history of cinema.”

The movie tells the story of a group of college friends in 1971. They decide to take one last road trip together before their lives change forever. Graduation is coming, adulthood is waiting, and the Vietnam War draft is hanging over them.

At the center of the group is Gardner Barnes, played by Costner. Gardner is confident, wild and unpredictable. Costner was still early in his career at the time, but his performance clearly made an impression on Tarantino.

Costner had not yet become the star audiences would know from movies like The Untouchables, Bull Durham and Dances With Wolves. Fandango was his first starring role in a theatrical movie, and it arrived in the same year as Silverado.

While Costner’s career was starting to move forward, Fandango struggled badly at the box office.

The movie received only a limited release in 27 theaters and made less than $100,000. Warner Bros. reportedly had trouble figuring out how to market it and even considered the movie “unreleasable” before eventually giving it a short theatrical run. For most viewers, that could have been the end of the story. But Tarantino remembered the movie.

His love for Costner’s performance went beyond simply enjoying the character. Reports say Tarantino became so fascinated by Gardner Barnes that he copied some of Costner’s mannerisms, clothes and way of speaking in his own life.

Tarantino has also talked about wanting to work with Costner over the years. He eventually brought several actors he admired when he was younger into his own movies, including Pam Grier and Kurt Russell. But despite his admiration for Costner, the two never ended up working together.

That makes Fandango even more interesting today. A movie that struggled to find an audience when it was released became a personal favorite of one of the most famous directors in the world.

The movie has also developed a cult following over the years. The problem is that it is still not the easiest film to find. It has never become a major streaming title, so people who want to see what Tarantino loved so much may have to search for a rental or purchase option.

Still, the story behind Fandango shows how strange a movie’s journey can be. A film that was once treated as a commercial problem ended up becoming a movie that Quentin Tarantino watched five times in one week and later praised as one of the greatest directorial debuts ever.

The information about Tarantino’s love for the film comes from his 1994 Vanity Fair interview, while details about the movie’s release, box office performance and cast come from reports and records surrounding Fandango.

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