Yesterday, Quentin Tarantino “officially” released the trailer for his forthcoming feature, The Hateful Eight. But when we tried to watch the trailer through the link virtually every website has embedded, what we got was a 4 minute snippet from an interview during which the director berates his interviewer for asking questions about his penchant for violence. Try to track the teaser down on YouTube, and you’ll be met with copyright infringement notifications from the Weinstein Company, or those annoying webcasts where dudes talk about trailers without ever showing them. So what’s the deal? Well, it’s complicated.
The Hateful Eight‘s teaser trailer originally debuted in theaters this summer during screenings of the Sin City sequel A Dame to Kill For (you probably missed it, though, as the film was a commercial flop, recouping less than $14 million of its $65 million budget at the box office.) The trailer had never been released online, until yesterday, when it rocketed Tarantino to the top of Facebook’s trending ticker. Search for the trailer now and all you’ll get is a rant about the Native American holocaust. It’s also worth noting that Tarantino had initially put the project on hold after a script leaked last year sent him into a full blown meltdown.
Set several years after the Civil War in a wintery Wyoming hellscape, the troubled film finds eight strangers stranded in a blizzard who soon discover “they shared a deadly connection.” Although those who have seen the trailer didn’t get an actual look at cast members Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Demian Bichir, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, and Bruce Dern (plus Channing Tatum in a small supporting role), it did introduce us to the murderous characters they’ll be playing–a band of bounty hunters and Confederate militiamen.
If a Reconstruction-era Spaghetti Western about bounty hunters and Southern generals sounds a little familiar, it’s probably because you’ve seen Django Unchained, Tarantino’s five-time Academy Award winning neo slave narrative. Hopefully, The Hateful Eight will send Tarantino out on a high note rather than remixing Django’s better bits. But considering he’s the brains behind John Travolta boogieing to Chuck Berry in a ponytail and bolo tie, originality isn’t something we’re worried about.
Late last year, Tarantino broke the hearts of machete wielding Uma Thurman fans everywhere when, during a Q&A, he announced plans to retire following the completion of his tenth film. Although “nothing is etched in stone,” the director stated “I don’t believe you should stay onstage until people are begging you to get off.”
What do you make of the trailer debacle, or hope to see from Tarantino’s final film (should it actually make it to theaters)? Sound off in the comments, and check out Tarantino’s bloodiest moments via the Creators’ Project.
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Text Emily Manning