Big news here – and suprising news as well. Miramax has gone ahead and decided that Kill Bill is going to be released as two separate movies.

Harvey Weinstein, a co-founder of Miramax, which is financing the film, said in an interview on Monday that the first installment would be in theaters on Oct. 10. The second release date is in still being negotiated, but it could be two to six months later, he said.

When Mr. Tarantino first approached Mr. Weinstein about doing “Kill Bill” several years ago, it was with the condition that he be allowed to film the whole 200-page script that he had written. When Mr. Weinstein visited the set in its last month of shooting late last year, Mr. Tarantino said in a statement, Mr. Weinstein brought up the idea of splitting it in two.

No decision was made at the time although Mr. Tarantino shot two opening-credit sequences, he said. Mr. Weinstein said it was not until he visited Los Angeles three weeks ago, when Mr. Tarantino showed him more than an hour and a half of the film, that the two decided on the two-film approach.

“Kill Bill” is the story, told in chapters, of the world’s deadliest female assassin, who survives being shot on her wedding day and, after five years in a coma, seeks revenge on the man who tried to kill her. The film’s samurai-style fight sequences were filmed largely in China and take place in everything from a nightclub to a snow-covered garden to a suburban home.

“There were no obstacles involved in splitting up `Kill Bill’ at all because I’ve always designed the movie, thought about the film, as malleable in any number of versions,” Mr. Tarantino said in his statement. That includes different versions for Asia, America and Europe.