once upon a time

When a similar deal was cut with Quentin Tarantino for 2019’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” the headline from the Hollywood Reporter touted it as a “score” for the director.

In an illuminating comparison, the Times’ box office report for “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” called that film’s opening weekend numbers a “hit,” while Coogler’s was met with doubt.

It seems like ancient history now, but once upon a time, there was a little backdoor pilot that dreamed of growing up to be a full-fledged reality television spectacle.

And yet while I felt distinctly ill at ease, shaken by what I had seen at the museum and memorial, within hours I began to feel powerful for the part I had played once upon a time as an activist in the Civil Rights Movement.

For the stunt community, the lack of Oscar recognition had become a source of increasingly bitter frustration, starkly highlighted by Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 film “Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood,” which finally landed Pitt an Oscar for his turn as a grizzled 1960s stuntman.