Did Quentin Tarantino just pull off the greatest punk ever?
Posted Thursday, August 14, 2014 at 5:20 PM Central
by John Couture
There's no doubting the brilliance of Quentin Tarantino. But does Tarantino have a little Ashton Kutcher inside of him?
The director may have channeled the Punk'd star's abilities when it comes to his forthcoming film The Hateful Eight. You all know the story by now. Quentin Tarantino wrote the script for The Hateful Eight and shared it with a few friends only to see it show up online in its entirety. Lawsuits were filed and withdrawn while the filmmaker made statements that left the future of his eighth feature film ambiguous at best.
And then, this happened.
Quentin Tarantino directed a live reading of The Hateful Eight and it was perfectly cast. No, it was cast perfectly, perhaps too perfectly? After the reading, Tarantino softened his stance on the shelving of The Hateful Eight and then two weeks ago we get the poster you see up there on the right claiming that the film will be out in 2015.
At the time, I didn't think too much about it other than damn, 2015 just got even more packed. But today, we got an email that just about blew my socks off.
Next weekend, the Weinstein film Sin City: A Dame to Kill For is opening up in theaters and there will be a surprise for those in theaters. Attached to the prints will be the teaser trailer for The Hateful Eight. Now teaser trailers come in all shapes and sizes and it's possible that it will only be voice overs or footage from the live reading. But what if it's not?
Because we love a good Hollywood conspiracy as much as anyone else, we are prone to wonder what if. As far as we know not a single scene has been shot for The Hateful Eight, but what if Quentin Tarantino secretly filmed it last Winter and it's already in the can?
Speaking of conspiracies, this might actually relate back to Tusk. If you recall, Quentin Tarantino originally passed on the role of Guy Lapointe in Tusk giving an excuse about not wanting to act right now. On face value, that excuse seemed logical enough, but what if he passed because he knew he'd be busy filming The Hateful Eight last Winter?
Sure, that's a stretch, but it wouldn't be the first time that a director secretly filmed a movie. Remember when Joss Whedon took time out of his busy schedule filming The Avengers to film Much Ado About Nothing secretly? So, it can be done.
The question remains though would Quentin do such a thing, and if so, why? Well, I think he would do it simply to prove that it can be done. Think about it. The whole crux of his issue about the leaked script was the fact that nothing is sacred any longer in Hollywood. So, what better way to prove that you can maintain a level of secrecy than to shoot a film without anyone finding out.
After it was in the can, what better way to promote said film and bring awareness to his cause than to secretly leak the script and then make us all talk about it. That would be brilliant and a Punk that even Ashton Kutcher would be proud of.
Now, did he do it? I guess we'll all find out next Friday when we hit theaters to see Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. It's not like we needed any extra motivation to go see it, so this trailer will just be the cherry on the sundae.
I will leave you with this though. I've read the script and if you're so inclined, you can find it out there on the Internet. The film calls for snow, a ton of snow and blizzard-like conditions. Last I checked, there wasn't any snow on the ground in Wyoming and other places that could stand in for Wyoming.
The poster (and assumably the trailer) promise a 2015 release. Now, it wouldn't be impossible to film it this Winter and turn it around for a 2015 release as the film mostly takes place in one location, but that turnaround is still pretty fast. Not impossible, but you know how Quentin Tarantino is and I'm sure he would want as much time as possible to make the film perfect.
Until next Friday, the suspense is killing us.