Quentin Tarantino started his feature film career with a string of crime films, but then changed gears with the eclectic mix of Death Proof, Inglourious Basterds, and Django Unchained.  Now it looks like his next movie will see him sticking to the Western genre.  During an interview on The Tonight Show, Tarantino said "I haven't told anyone this publicly, but I will say the genre: It's a western," but wouldn't go into any more details other than to say, it wouldn't be a sequel to Django Unchained.  Tarantino explained, "I had so much fun doing Django, and I love westerns so much that after I taught myself how to make one, it's like 'OK! Let me make another one now that I know what I'm doing,'"

Hit the jump to check out video of the interview, and for speculation on what the Western could be.

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Image via The Weinstein Company

Screenwriter BenDavid Grabinski, who was at the taping, brought the news to Hitfix's attention, and noted that Tarantino is almost done writing the script.  Hitfix's Drew McWeeny then provided some ideas about what the movie could be:

  • A film about abolitionist John Brown, who led an anti-slavery revolt at Harpers Ferry in 1859 that ended with his capture.  He was then tried and hanged.  Tarantino says he sees Brown "as a mythic hero" and would treat the movie as a Western.  Curiously, this would see him returning to the subject of slavery.
  • There's also the possibility of a film set in the Australian outback, but done in the style of a Western.  There was a hint of that Australian flavor in Django, and I thought it was an amusing touch.  However, I think I'm one of the few people who liked Tarantino's goofy Australian accent.
  • He could return to adapting Elmore Leonard (Tarantino previously adapted Leonard's Rum Punch into Jackie Brown) by taking on the novel Forty Lashes Less One, which "deals with an Apache Indian and a disgraced black Union soldier who meet on death row before they are sent on a suicide mission to find and kill the five worst outlaws in the West."

Earlier this year, Tarantino had teased the prospect of making a trilogy out of his "rewritten history" movies, and previously talked about wanting to make a 1920s gangster movie.  There's also Killer Crow, which would focus on a group of black soldiers who go AWOL in 1944 after the invasion of Normandy.  However, if Tarantino is determined to return to the Western, it will put these projects on the backburner.  As for Kill Bill: Vol. 3, there's no indication he'll bring it back from the dead.

Here's the video of Tarantino talking about his untitled Western along with his writing process, his previous appearance on The Tonight Show back in 1992, and more: