It took just over a week for “The Hateful Eight” to go from Quentin Tarantino‘s next project to another addition to the growing list of his Lost, Unmade & Possible Future Films. Indeed, the director hasn’t ruled out eventually making the movie, after he angrily yanked it off the table, following the script getting leaked to Hollywood insiders. And as expected, details about the screenplay for “The Hateful Eight” have already emerged, and as always, Tarantino had some big plans for the movie.
Most significantly, from page one, the script notes that the scenes will be shot in “CINEMASCOPE 70MM filmed gloriousness,” a morsel which we’re sure will make Tarantino fans salivate at what he had in mind. And while most know CinemaScope from its use in classic films for breathtaking vistas, don’t expect the same here. In fact, the result might’ve been something close to what Paul Thomas Anderson did with “The Master,” as most of “The Hateful Eight” is set within two locations: a stagecoach and a haberdashery. As for the plot, here’s what The Wrap decided to share after getting their hands on the script:
The script is an ensemble Western with obvious parts for Madsen and Dern, as well as Tarantino stalwarts like Samuel L. Jackson and Christoph Waltz. Jackson and Madsen would likely both play bounty hunters returning human plunder to a town called Red Rock in exchange for hefty rewards. Their characters, a former major in the Union army and a man named John Ruth, dominate the first two of the script’s five chapters.
They run into a Southerner named Chris Mannix on the road, and three of them, along with their driver — a living prisoner and three dead bounties strapped to the roof — arrive at a haberdashery to take shelter from an oncoming blizzard. Yet the proprietors, Minnie, Sweet Dave and her other colleagues, are nowhere to be found. In their place are four men, a Southern general (likely Dern), an alleged hangman, a Frenchman named Bob and a cowboy named Joe Gage.
Mistrust, coffee and violence ensue.
Essentially, it seems like your standard bounty hunter tale, though one infused with a bit of cabin fever, in a story divided into five chapters: “Last Stage to Red Rock,” “Son of A Gun,” “Minnie’s,” “The Four Passengers” and “Black Night, White Hell.”
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