Franco Nero in Sergio Corbucci’s Django (1966)
HitFix has what looks to be some well-sourced and thoroughly researched information about Quentin Tarantino’s next film, previously described as “A Southern” — a frontier revenge tale set in the post-Civil War South. Drew McWeeny connects the dots for us:
Earlier today, @AgentTrainee simply tweeted the word “Jealous?” and a picture of a title page that should look familiar to anyone who read either “Kill Bill” or “Inglourious Basterds.” And if that title page is right, then we know know a few new things.
Awards Daily reader, billy, has seen the script and offers this informal synopsis:
The title character Django is a freed slave, who under the tutelage of a German bounty hunter (Christophe Waltz) becomes a badass bounty hunter himself and after assisting Waltz on taking down some bad guys for profit, is in turn assisted by Waltz in tracking down his slave wife and liberating her from an evil plantation owner. And that doesn’t even half begin to cover it!
[Find more of billy’s impressions on the comment page.] Tarantino apparently put the finishing touches in his script three days ago. Take a look at the title page after the cut and read the conclusions assembled from available clues.
In his analysis at HitFix, Drew fills in the background:
Django was first played by Franco Nero in 1966 in a Sergio Corbucci film that is regarded by many as one of the best of the spaghetti Westerns. Thanks to the vagaries of international copyright law, there have been dozens of movies since where Django appears, and while few of them are genuine sequels, Nero did reprise the character a few times…
Corbucci’s film is particularly violent, especially for the era, and that brutality is part of the kick of the movie. Django goes through hell in the film, eventually having to figure out how to fire a revolver with two broken hands. There’s a moment in the film that might feel a little bit familiar to fans of “Reservoir Dogs,” so should we be surprised to hear that Tarantino has a love of the character? …to hear him talk about using the Reconstruction-era South as a backdrop for the film is exciting enough‚Ķ but then you add in this?
Putting sealed to the speculation, Franco Nero himself will make an appearance in Tarantino’s reinterpretation –in fact he recommended Christoph Waltz be cast in the new film — though if the new Dajango is a freed slave it’s obvious Nero won’t be playing the title role.
