Quentin Tarantino may only have two films left in the tank, but that has in no way quelled excitement for his upcoming – and, incidentally, eight – feature film, The Hateful Eight.
Barreling down on its much-touted Christmas Day roadshow release, where the director’s latest will be broadcast via the old-school format of Ultra Panavision 70mm. Showcasing the icy hills of Wyoming in all of their spine-chilling glory, The Hateful Eight is as much about the environments as it is the titular ensemble of bounty hunters.
Make no mistake, though, with cracking dialogue and a gleeful dose of violence, early trailers – and indeed reviews – indicate that this is Tarantino revelling in a style he has become defined for, though whether The Hateful Eight can emulate the success of Django Unchained will be told in time.
Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Samuel L. Jackson, Walton Goggins, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern, and Demian Bichir will form Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight when it opens via 70mm-fitted theaters on Christmas Day. From there, the Western will expand into standard theaters in early January.
In THE HATEFUL EIGHT, set six or eight or twelve years after the Civil War, a stagecoach hurtles through the wintry Wyoming landscape. The passengers, bounty hunter John Ruth (Russell) and his fugitive Daisy Domergue (Leigh), race towards the town of Red Rock where Ruth, known in these parts as “The Hangman,” will bring Domergue to justice. Along the road, they encounter two strangers: Major Marquis Warren (Jackson), a black former union soldier turned infamous bounty hunter, and Chris Mannix (Goggins), a southern renegade who claims to be the town’s new Sheriff.
Losing their lead on the blizzard, Ruth, Domergue, Warren and Mannix seek refuge at Minnie’s Haberdashery, a stagecoach stopover on a mountain pass. When they arrive at Minnie’s, they are greeted not by the proprietor but by four unfamiliar faces. Bob (Bichir), who’s taking care of Minnie’s while she’s visiting her mother, is holed up with Oswaldo Mobray (Roth), the hangman of Red Rock, cow-puncher Joe Gage (Madsen), and Confederate General Sanford Smithers (Dern). As the storm overtakes the mountainside stopover, our eight travelers come to learn they may not make it to Red Rock after all…
