Nearly everything about Quentin Tarantino’s next film, The Hateful Eight, has been non-traditional. The Django Unchained filmmaker first began publicly talking about the Western as his next film earlier this year, as he was finalizing the script and getting ready to send it to a few actors he had in mind for the lead roles. But then the script leaked online and Tarantino angrily stated that he would not be making the movie to spite the unofficial leak. The director subsequently staged a live-read of his Hateful Eight screenplay with a bevy of talented actors—including Bruce Dern and Samuel L. Jackson—and after he cooled off, he then decided that he would be making The Hateful Eight as his next movie after all.
Tarantino revealed at Comic-Con that filming would be getting underway early next year, but it appears that the first Hateful Eight trailer might actually be arriving in theaters next week attached to Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. However, there’s a catch: it might not be released online at all. More after the jump. [Update: Deadline has confirmed that the Hateful Eight trailer will indeed be attached to Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.]
The folks over at the Alberta Film Ratings board have posted a trailer classification for The Hateful Eight with a running time of 1:40. Whenever trailers are classified by the MPAA, that information is made public as it is sent to theaters a week or so before release, which puts this in line with Sin City 2’s opening weekend. Moreover, the folks over at /Film report they’ve been contacted by multiple theater employees saying that they’ve received word that the Hateful Eight trailer will be enclosed with the digital projection copy of Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. They also did some digging and found this on the Weinstein Company’s distribution website:
The difference in runtimes likely has to do with the classification differences between the US and Canada, but nevertheless this is pretty solid evidence that a trailer is on its way. The Weinstein Company page also apparently notes that the Hateful Eight trailer will be featured in front of Sin City: A Dame to Kill For exclusively and will not be online. This isn’t terribly tough to believe given that Tarantino is very old school in the way he views film presentation, and the pairing with Sin City makes sense given that he and director Robert Rodriguez have been good friends for years.
The main question is, how does this trailer exist if The Hateful Eight hasn’t started production yet? Well, it’s possible that this teaser may not include any actual footage, but will instead incorporate audio from Tarantino’s live-read. Many of the actors present at the event are also expected to star in the film, including Kurt Russell, Amber Tamblyn, and Walton Goggins, so it’s entirely possible that Tarantino has cooked up a teaser to get audiences excited for his next feature.
Whatever the case, this is an incredibly smart way of attracting ticket-buyers for Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, a film that has thus far failed to drum up any amount of interest beyond "they really made that?"
The story of The Hateful Eight follows a group of passengers on a stagecoach that get caught and trapped in a blizzard, where they’re forced to confront the ratcheting tension that develops. As someone who’s enjoyed every single film Tarantino has offered thus far, I’m very much looking forward to seeing the filmmaker’s second proper Western. The Hateful Eight is planned for release in 2015.
