Netflix chose the biggest pop-culture stage of the year to unveil one of its most intriguing film projects. During the Super Bowl, the streamer dropped a surprise first look at The Adventures of Cliff Booth, confirming Brad Pitt’s return as the stuntman first introduced in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
The film marks a notable creative collaboration. It is directed by David Fincher, working from a screenplay by Quentin Tarantino, bringing together two of contemporary cinema’s most distinctive voices for a Netflix-backed project. While Tarantino wrote and directed the original 2019 film, The Adventures of Cliff Booth expands that universe through Fincher’s precise, atmospheric lens.
The short teaser establishes immediate continuity with Tarantino’s Oscar-winning film while signaling a shift in perspective. Set to retro music, the footage shows Cliff Booth icing his knee, lingering in a bar, drifting through the behind-the-scenes corners of a film set, and tearing across a dirt track in a derby-style race car. The imagery leans into Booth’s identity as a Hollywood lifer — bruised, aging, and still moving through an industry that has largely passed him by.
The first trailer for David Fincher’s ‘THE ADVENTURES OF CLIFF BOOTH’ has been released.
— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) February 9, 2026
Coming soon to Netflix. pic.twitter.com/E70SJrBUzB
The teaser also introduces new faces to Booth’s world. Elizabeth Debicki and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II appear briefly, both dressed in elegant, old-Hollywood-inspired attire. While their roles remain undisclosed, their presence suggests the film will widen its focus beyond Booth as a side character, placing him at the center of a larger narrative shaped by the industry’s shifting power structures.
Tonally, the preview balances nostalgia with provocation. Quick flashes of guns, cigarettes, profanity, nudity, and middle fingers are repeatedly stamped out by cheeky on-screen censorship gags, turning modern content restrictions into a visual joke. The approach mirrors the film’s likely thematic tension — old Hollywood excess colliding with contemporary sensibilities.
The most striking moment arrives at the end of the teaser. Cliff Booth is shown placing an Oscar statuette on his desk, a self-aware nod to Pitt’s Academy Award win for the role in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. It’s a moment that deliberately blurs the line between actor and character, reinforcing Booth’s near-mythic status within this cinematic universe.
Unlike a traditional sequel, The Adventures of Cliff Booth is positioned as a character-driven expansion rather than a direct continuation. Long regarded as the emotional anchor of Tarantino’s film, Booth now steps fully into the spotlight, carrying with him themes of obsolescence, masculinity, and survival in an industry that rewards youth and reinvention.
Netflix’s decision to debut the teaser during the Super Bowl underscores the importance of the project to the streamer. This is not a quiet spinoff buried in the algorithm, but a prestige title designed to command cultural attention. With Pitt returning to an Oscar-winning role, Fincher behind the camera, and Tarantino’s writing anchoring the story, The Adventures of Cliff Booth is being positioned as a major cinematic event rather than a novelty extension.
Further details about the film’s release timeline are expected in the coming months. For now, the message is clear: Cliff Booth’s story isn’t over — it’s entering a new chapter, shaped by some of the most influential filmmakers working today.