For months, rumors have abounded concerning Quentin Tarantino's follow-up to Inglourious Basterds.
Tarantino had expressed interest in doing some sort of western, but you never know with this guy. He's constantly proposing films he'd like to make, but they never get past the "wouldn't it be cool?" stage. But a couple of days ago, the final draft of the script for Tarantino's next flick was leaked online. And guess what? It's a western — really!
Tarantino's agency, WME, confirmed that the genre-meister's next flick will be a spaghetti western titled Django Unchained and will star Christoph Waltz, who won an Oscar for his work in Inglourious Basterds.
According to WME, Django Unchained is "a western whose lead character is a former slave who is in league with Waltz to save his wife from an evil plantation owner." Supposedly, the movie is inspired by the 1966 cult favorite Django, which starred Franco Nero and was directed by Sergio Corbucci, the Italian master of ultra-violent spaghetti westerns. Also cited as an influence on Tarantino's new flick is Sukiyaki Western Django, Takashi Miike's 2007 reimagining of Django, which featured Tarantino in a cameo.
Tarantino reportedly is in a hurry to get started. He has already turned in his screenplay to the Weinstein Company, so the next step is casting. He wants to start production as soon as possible, hopefully as early as late summer, but this will depend on the availability of the actors he eventually casts.
Django Unchained has the potential to be perhaps the ultimate Tarantino flick — a spaghetti western inspired by both a '60s cult spaghetti western and the Japanese remake of that '60s cult spaghetti western. The mind reels.
Over the course of his career, Tarantino has worked his way through all his favorite genres, and considering his two favorite films are Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo, I'm surprised it's taken him this long to get to a western. But I'm glad he has. I mean, Tarantino by way of Corbucci, Leone and Miike. Wouldn't it be cool?
I actually have a LOT of faith in Tarantino, and am looking forward to this.
I do too. He's that rare creator that can transcend his influences and fashion something original from them. From what I gather, he's looking to do with Django Unchained what he did with Inglourious Basterds — use the chosen genre to play with history. With his new film, he's taking on slavery. The character of Django is a freed slave who teams with a German bounty hunter (played by Waltz) to rescue his enslaved wife from the clutches of a despicable plantation owner. So, we have a black western/revenge flick that would've probably starred Jim Brown in the '70s. Sounds awesome!
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I honestly believe that every director should make a western at some point in their career.
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It's 168 pages. I've read it and two things stick out.
1) That humourless little troll, Spike Lee, is gonna have a fucking coronary when he sees this. If he took offense to QT using 'nigger' about a dozen times in JACKIE BROWN (still QT's best film) then he'll lose his shit over this.
And...
2) An older section of the audience will shit their pants at Kevin Costner's role in this movie. It's not a big role as such, but it's very nasty. Yipes! :~
It's 168 pages. I've read it and two things stick out.
1) That humourless little troll, Spike Lee, is gonna have a fucking coronary when he sees this. If he took offense to QT using 'nigger' about a dozen times in JACKIE BROWN (still QT's best film) then he'll lose his shit over this.
Yeah, I figured that would be the case. I'm still having trouble with the whole "Jamie Foxx as Django" thing. I mean, he just doesn't click with me. I don't know what it is. I've enjoyed him in films before, but this casting is just not working for me.
__________________
A mind is like a parachute. It doesn't work if it's not open.
For months, rumors have abounded concerning Quentin Tarantino's follow-up to Inglourious Basterds.
Tarantino reportedly is in a hurry to get started. He has already turned in his screenplay to the Weinstein Company, so the next step is casting. He wants to start production as soon as possible, hopefully as early as late summer, but this will depend on the availability of the actors he eventually casts. 
I actually have a LOT of faith in Tarantino, and am looking forward to this.
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