Kevin Costner has dropped out of his supporting role in Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming Django Unchained, citing a combination of work and personal reasons.
Costner would have been playing against type his normal good guy screen persona as Ace Woody, the sadistic overseer who trains slaves to fight in a gladiatorial arena run by Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Calvin Candie. Jamie Foxx stars in the film as freed slave Django, who comes to Candie’s establishment to free his wife who is being forced to be a prostitute.
The actor currently has a lot on his plate. In addition to working on Zack Snyder’s currently in-production Superman film Man Of Steel as Clark Kent’s adoptive father Jonathan Kent, Costner is also producing and appearing in the mini-series The Hatfield And The McCoys for the History Channel.
Tarantino seems to be having some trouble assembling a cast for this film and I have to wonder if many who might be interested in participating are balking at the exploitation film tone of the script. Of course, Tarantino has been mining the various exploitation film genres for his last couple of films and they have all exceeded their inspirations. I see no reason to think that Tarantino would not do so again with Django Unchained. Hopefully he’ll be able to find an actor willing to take the risk to play the part that Costner has vacated.
Via Deadline.
