Your options to see THE HATEFUL EIGHT are about to open up just in time for the holidays, as The Weinstein Company is in the process of altering their rollout for Quentin Tarantino's latest film.
Confirmed by multiple sources, the studio is set to allow a small number of theaters in select cities to show a DCP (Digital Cinema Package) version of Tarantino's Road Show cut of THE HATEFUL EIGHT as of Christmas Day. As it previously stood, that edit of the film – complete with overture and intermission – was only going to be shown in 70mm, with digital presentations coming on-board in early-January for the wide release, but even that plan has been shifted now with the movie moving up on the calendar from its initial January 8 release date to January 1.
How exactly did we get here?
The Weinstein Company's goal was to have THE HATEFUL EIGHT in 100 theaters for Christmas Day, helping to retrofit a number of venues to be able to project 70mm as Tarantino intended. However, they also insisted that the theaters pick up the cost of the 70mm prints, which is rather expensive. As a result, many prospective locations balked at showing the film, believing that they'd end up in the red once the film's run was done, unable to sell enough tickets in their moderately-sized houses to justify the cost. A number were still game to press on, but TWC's target was effectively cut in half, with 70mm showings being cut down to about 50 theaters.
In the hopes of boosting those numbers up once again and making the film a bit more accessible to those who would like to see the Road Show cut, the DCP option surfaced. The number of locations that will be showing the film in that way is still being finalized, but what I'm hearing is that it'll be around 50 in order to hit that 100 theater total they'd wanted originally.
On January 1, the multiplex version will kick in, offering audiences the option to see a slightly different cut of the film, with no overture nor intermission in tow, thus shortening the exclusive window the first wave of theatergoers will have all to themselves.
This obviously wasn't the plan for Quentin Tarantino or The Weinstein Company, but once those 70mm venues didn't come close to matching what they had hoped for, a new strategy needed to be employed… and this is it. Although this has yet to be confirmed, we expect an announcement of this change very soon.
THE HATEFUL EIGHT (Road Show edition) arrives in select theaters on December 25 – 70mm and DCP before its wide multiplex release on January 1.