For a band as grizzly as Metallica, it’s a shame that their music hasn’t been used in more action movies. Although nearly every sports arena in recent history has used tracks like ‘Enter Sandman’ in some capacity, the thrash metal legends have never contributed any new material to soundtracks outside of the song ‘I Disappear’ for Mission Impossible 2. Before they won the hearts of Stranger Things fans everywhere with the inclusion of ‘Master of Puppets’, Metallica had the opportunity to work alongside a Hollywood legend.
At the start of the 1990s, Metallica had already started going through a career renaissance. Crossing over into the mainstream with the help of Bob Rock, The Black Album became one of the highest-selling albums of all time, spawning one hit after another with tracks like ‘The Unforgiven’ and ‘Sad But True’.
While metal fans worldwide couldn’t get enough of the record, the band already had an avid fan in film legend Quentin Tarantino. Being just as in tune with music as he was with film, Tarantino had already come off directing Pulp Fiction and had gone on to even more critical acclaim with movies like Jackie Brown. Though each film featured captivating performances and Tarantino’s trademark approach to dialogue, he was looking to create the ultimate action movie with Kill Bill and wanted to use Metallica to do it.
When compiling the different martial arts scenes, Tarantino initially used Metallica’s tracks to add dramatic flair to each strike. Although the plan was to have the Metallica songs in the movie, Lars Ulrich remembered having to turn down the director’s choices.
Talking to Indiewire, Ulrich recalled the moment when Tarantino sprung the idea on the rest of the band, saying, “He explained how he had written and choreographed the two main fight scenes in the film to the Metallica songs ‘Enter Sandman’ and ‘Sad but True’. Fists would impact faces on accents. Tarantino’s next-level movie magic married to Metallica music, all turned up to 11.”
Though the idea worked like a match made in heaven, Ulrich started to reel back on the idea when he read further into the story. Despite being heralded as a masterpiece of action movies today, Ulrich had a hard time figuring out what the movie was about, recalling, “Page by page, I realised that most of this was written in a language outside my realm of understanding. I had never encountered a narrative like this, set in a foreign culture of martial arts and Asian myths. I couldn’t wrap my thick Danish head around it.”
Then again, the band probably had no time to get heavily involved. Premiering in 2003, the film’s production would have been happening alongside Metallica’s group therapy sessions and subsequent unravelling during the making of St Anger, which would make for strained relationships throughout the album’s production.
By the time work on both projects wrapped, the film and the Metallica album continued to go in separate directions, with Metallica being heavily criticised for their move away from their classic sound and Tarantino proving himself yet again as one of the best directors of his generation. Even though Metallica kept on conquering the metal world, Ulrich still regrets turning down Tarantino, explaining, “In the end, I never got back to Tarantino. Probably the single biggest mistake I’ve made in the creative department.”
