Tarantino’s Upcoming Western Gets A Title And Some Hoped For Casting

It was late November when director Quentin Tarantino broke a nearly year-long silence about what his next project would be. Speaking on The Tonight Show to host Jay Leno, he stated that his follow-up to 2012’s Django Unchained would be another western, explaining “I had so much fun doing Django and I love westerns so much, that after I taught myself how to make one, it’s like ‘OK, now let me make another one now that I know what I’m doing.'”

Surprisingly, it has been nearly two months and we have not heard more about the film from the usually verbose director. But the folks over at Deadline have managed to hear a few murmurings that they are happy to divulge.

It seems that the title of Tarantino’s new western is The Hateful Eight. It has a definite western sound to it, recalling the classic Magnificent Seven while at the time same echoing a bit of the exploitation genre that Tarantino has been interested in exploring in his last couple of films. Plus, there’s a bit of internal rhyme to the title that I find pleasing to the ear.

Additionally, the writer/director has reportedly now finished his first draft and is showing it around to a few actors whom he is hoping to convince to star in the project. Deadline is pegging two of those actors as Christoph Waltz and Bruce Dern. Waltz’s name should come as no surprise. The German actor got his first big break with a bravura performance in Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds and the two paired again with great results with Django Unchained. If the two were content to limit the rest of their careers to just mutual collaborations, I would not be upset at all. Dern is also another interesting, but not entirely unsurprising a choice for Tarantino to make. In addition to having a small role Django, Dern was a mainstay in a number of films from the later 1960s through the 1970s, an era of film that Tarantino is a big fan of. And with Dern getting some Oscar buzz for his work in Nebraska, a role in a film from a director like Tarantino would certainly help continue the revitalization of his career.

We’re still a ways away from shooting beginning on the project. Most probably, Tarantino will do at least one more run through the script, perhaps to tailor it a bit towards any actor who expresses interest in signing on for the film. The Hollywood Reporter is quoting their own insiders that the film may get in front of cameras as early as this summer. I suppose that it will probably be sooner rather than later before we hear again about this film.