THE HATEFUL EIGHT Was Intially Going To Be a DJANGO UNCHAINED Novel
Here's a cool piece of movie trivia: Quentin Tarantino's next film, The Hateful Eight, had more in common with his previous movie, Django Unchained, than simply being another western. In a new interview with DP/30, Tarantino reveals that The Hateful Eight actually started out as a Django novel before morphing into its current form:
“After Django Unchained was over, I knew I didn’t want to do any Django movie sequel or anything, but I liked the idea of there being maybe a series of paperbacks that could be the further adventures of Django or maybe go back in time, a couple more Django/Schultz adventures or something...So I hadn’t written a novel before and I thought I would just try my hand at writing a Django paperback. At the time it was called ‘Django In White Hell’. So I started writing, and it was basically the stagecoach stuff, but instead of [Samuel L. Jackson’s] Major Warren it was Django...
Because I was introducing such rough characters in this piece, and there would be even more rough, disreputable characters waiting for them [at the haberdashery], at a certain point I realized, ‘Well you know what’s wrong with this piece? It’s Django. he’s needs to go. Because you shouldn’t have a moral center when it comes to these eight characters.’”
Having seen The Hateful Eight but still being under embargo, I can just say that while I can see how Django could have been the reason for this story to come together, I'm so glad that Tarantino jettisoned him from the final draft. Samuel L. Jackson's Major Marquis Warren instantly establishes himself as one of the greatest Tarantino characters ever, and it would have been a shame not to be introduced to him in this film. I actually wouldn't mind reading a Django novel with a new story featuring that character, but Tarantino definitely made the right choice here.
Via: Uproxx