Tarantino's "Django Unchained"

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Tarantino’s Next Movie is Black Western Django Unchained
Published: Saturday, April 30th 2011 at 5:47 PM

Quentin Tarantino has handed in the final draft of his spaghetti western script "Django Unchained" to Weinstein Co., his agency WME confirms.

According to Tarantino Archives, the title "Django Unchained" pays homage to both the Sergio Corbucci original "Django", not to mention Takashi Miike’s "Sukiyaki Western Django", which features Tarantino. Another long-rumored inspiration, once optioned by Miramax, was Elmore Leonard’s "40 Lashes Less One".

The only cast member that WME can officially confirm is Christophe Waltz, who joins up with former slave Django to save his wife from an evil plantation owner.

No start date or locations have been finalized.

Original "Django" star Franco Nero has said he is attached, along with Waltz, Keith Carradine and Treat Williams.

Sergio at Shadow and Act4 picked up a plot description from a commenter at Hollywood Elsewhere:

Django is a freed slave, who, under the tutelage of a German bounty hunter (Christopher Waltz) becomes a bad-ass bounty hunter himself, and after assisting Waltz in taking down some bad guys for profit, is helped by Waltz in tracking down his slave wife and liberating her from an evil plantation owner. And that doesn’t even half begin to cover it! This film deals with racism as I’ve rarely seen it handled in a Hollywood film. While it’s 100 percent pure popcorn and revenge flick, it is pure genius in the way it takes on the evil slave owning south. Think of what he did with the Nazis in Inglorious and you’ll get a sense of what he’s doing with slave owners and slave overseers in this one.

WME confirmed this plotline: “It’s a western whose lead character is a former slave who is in league with Waltz to save his wife from an evil plantation owner.”

The Playlist fills in more details of what Tarantino said he wanted to do back in 2010:

I’d like to do a Western. But rather than set it in Texas, have it in slavery times. With that subject that everybody is afraid to deal with. Let’s shine that light on ourselves. You could do a ponderous history lesson of slaves escaping on the Underground Railroad. Or, you could make a movie that would be exciting. Do it as an adventure. A spaghetti Western that takes place during that time. And I would call it ‘A Southern.’.. I want to do movies that deal with America’s horrible past with slavery and stuff but do them like spaghetti westerns, not like big issue movies. I want to do them like they’re genre films, but they deal with everything that America has never dealt with because it’s ashamed of it, and other countries don’t really deal with because they don’t feel they have the right to.

It sounds like Tarantino is ready to tackle some of the taboo material in Lars von Trier’s controversial "Manderlay" or Richard Fleischer’s notoriously sensationalistic "Mandingo". Can Tarantino convince Ennio Morricone to compose an original score for the movie?

[PainIsBeauty]

Sounds amazing! and Quentin in the perfect guy to make a movie like this,
high expectations for sure!

[neverending]

Very interesting....

[Elvis_Christ]

I'm not sure about this one. Sukiyaki Western Django was OK but it just didn't sit right with me. But thematically this does sound interesting and there's always some great moments in a Tarantino flick so I'll no doubt check it out.

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Quentin Tarantino is known for his unorthodox, out-of-the-box casting choices, from John Travolta, Robert Forster and Pam Grier to Brad Pitt, Kurt Russell, and David Carradine.

Now Leonardo DiCaprio (who Tarantino chased for the role of Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds) is in talks to play the villain in spaghetti western Django Unchained. He would play evil plantation owner Calvin Candie, who also runs Candyland, a Mississippi club that features sexually abused female slaves and mandingos forced to fight in death matches.

Still uncast—with Will Smith far from a sure thing—is Django, the slave freed and trained as a bounty hunter by sophisticated German Christolph Waltz (who won a supporting actor Oscar as Landa). He is appalled by the racist ways of the antebellum South, and helps to prepare Django to face Candie so that he can rescue his wife, Broomhilda.

Tarantino regular Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction) plays Candie’s right hand man/head house slave. Inglourious Basterds star Michael Fassbender accidentally revealed that he’s been cast in an unidentified role (thanks, Twitter).

The combo of DiCaprio and Tarantino is intriguing to say the least. Deadline reports that Idris Elba, Jamie Foxx and Chris Tucker are also in the mix for Django.

The range of actors in the mix reveal how pivotal this casting is. Like Inglourious Basterds, irreverence is king here, and the movie’s tone will be set by Django. Smith or Tucker would bring some light humor to the intense role of a very angry black man, while Foxx—no slouch in the comedy department—is a powerful dramatic actor. So is The Wire‘s Elba, who is British (Elba’s The Wire co-star, American actor Wood Harris, who played Avon Barksdale, is also worth consideration).

[newb]

yeah....looking forward to this one. Westerns are at the top of my favorite genres.

[DickLaurentIsDead]

yeah, this one's a no brainer.
opening day for sure.
i wonder what morricone and blaxploitation music he will use in this one?

[fiend_skull]

I'm extremely excited for this movie. I am a huge Tarantino fan and I love westerns, so combining the two can only end in pure bliss haha. At this point him casting Will Smith wouldn't bother me at all. Tarantino always seems to have a firm grip on the situation no matter what he is doing, when it comes to movie.

Yeah, he is a tad cocky, but when almost every movie you've made has taken spots in Top movie lists, I'd think it be okay to be a bit cocky haha.

[massacre man]

I can't wait for this.

By the way, if anyone wants a copy of the script I have it.

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Though its cast is still coming together, Quentin Tarantino’s next movie at least has a release date.

Django Unchained, a spaghetti Western about a former Southern slave who attempts to rescue his wife from a cruel plantation owner, will greet fans on Christmas Day 2012, The Weinstein Company confirmed today.

Leonardo DiCaprio is rumored to be in final talks for the role of the evil slave owner, while Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) is expected to play a German bounty hunter.

Will Smith, Idris Elba, Chris Tucker, and Jamie Foxx have been mentioned as possible candidates for the lead, with Samuel L. Jackson in the mix for another role.

Unchained would be Tarantino’s first December release since Jackie Brown opened on Christmas Day in 1997.