Somebody Leaked Quentin Tarantino’s New Script, And Now They’re Probably Going To Die
The director's shelved 'The Hateful Eight', and looking for suspects.
Early last week, news broke that Quentin Tarantino’s next film — following the well-received Django Unchained — would be another ensemble Western, titled The Hateful Eight, and rumoured to include Christoph Waltz, Samuel L. Jackson, and potentially even Will Smith amongst its cast. Well, overnight, there was a slight change to those plans: the script somehow leaked, Tarantino got pissed, and he’s angrily shelved the whole project (it’s going to become a book instead, he says, which is just ridiculously spiteful).
“I’m very, very depressed,” Tarantino told Deadline. “I finished a first draft, and I didn’t mean to shoot it until next winter, a year from now. I gave it to six people, and apparently it’s gotten out today.” The director reportedly learned of the script’s leak when agents started calling him up pitching actors for various roles in the project.
To make things more interesting, QT also revealed that he’d handed out the script to just three actors he was chasing for the film: regulars Tim Roth and Michael Madsen, and resurgent ol’-timer Bruce Dern (currently scoring rave reviews in Alexander Payne’s Nebraska).
“The one I know didn’t do this is Tim Roth. One of the others let their agent read it, and that agent has now passed it on to everyone in Hollywood. I don’t know how these fucking agents work, but I’m not making this next. I’m going to publish it, and that’s it for now,” said Tarantino, in probably four seconds flat and sweating maniacally.
Tarantino in happier times, on the set of Django Unchained with Christoph Waltz.
“I hadn’t given it to Christoph, I haven’t given it to Sam Jackson,” he told Deadline’s reporter. “I gave it to three motherfucking actors. We met in a place, and I put it in their hands. It’s got to be either the agents of Dern or Madsen. Please name names.”
Somewhere in Hollywood, a frightened, coke-addled agent is packing up his car for a long overnight drive to Mexico. This story is incredible, but someone is going to die.
Photo Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images