‘THE HATEFUL EIGHT’: NEW QUENTIN TARANTINO TITLE REVEALED

The Hateful Eight is the title of Quentin Tarantino’s new script, and the writer-director is handing it off to actors he’s hoping will star in the film. Top of the list: frequent QT collaborator Christoph Waltz and Nebraska star Bruce Dern, who had a brief but memorable cameo in 2012’s Django Unchained. As with Django, the Pulp Fiction creator aims to take them all back to the Old West.
Of course, some of this was foreseen The Tonight Show last November. That’s when Tarantino divulged of his next project: “It’s a western…I love westerns so much that after I taught myself how to make one, it’s like ‘Okay! Let me make another one now that I know what I’m doing.’”
The Hateful Eight obviously brings to mind The Magnificent Seven, the 1960 epic starring Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen–but cult movie fanatics (like Tarantino) might also think of Cut-Throats Nine, a 1972 splatter western so violent that patrons got a “Terror Mask” to hide their eyes from all the cowboy carnage.
Hateful Eight provides a rich western-themed opportunity for Tarantino’s trademark “comeback” roles. Franco Nero, the original Django, seems a natural. We’d also like to see Eli Wallach, who played “The Ugly” in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (he’s 98, so time’s a-wastin’); Tony Anthony, known for spaghetti westerns (A Stranger in Town) and early ’80s 3D revivals (Comin’ At Ya)–and even Ringo Starr, who acted alongside Anthony in 1971’s Blindman. And if ever the moment were right for a Quentin Tarantino-Sam Elliot team-up, The Hateful Eight is it. Seriously, how did that guy get left out of Django Unchained?