Quentin Tarantino puts Hateful Eight script out to pasture after script leak

January 21st 2014, 9:54pm

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Were you looking forward to seeing Quentin Tarantino’s THE HATEFUL EIGHT? Well, unfortunately the project has been shelved for the time being. Wait, didn’t we just get the news that this was Tarantino’s next project? Why the sudden shelving? Turns out a script leak is the reason the film has been pushed aside.

When Mike Fleming of Deadline got a call from Tarantino today he didn’t expect it would be over something like this. The director told Fleming that maybe he might decide to revisit the project in the next five years or so…maybe. Right now though, Tarantino is understandably upset:

I’m very, very depressed. I finished a script, a first draft, and I didn’t mean to shoot it until next winter, a year from now. I gave it to six people, and apparently it’s gotten out today.”

He then went into the details:

I gave it to one of the producers on Django Unchained, Reggie Hudlin, and he let an agent come to his house and read it. That’s a betrayal, but not crippling because the agent didn’t end up with the script. There is an ugly maliciousness to the rest of it. I gave it to three actors: Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern, Tim Roth. The one I know didn’t do this is Tim Roth. One of the others let their agent read it and that agent has now passed it on to everyone in Hollywood. I don’t know how these fucking agents work, but I’m not making this next. I’m going to publish it, and that’s it for now. I give it out to six people and if I can’t trust them to that degree, then I have no desire to make it. I’ll publish it. I’m done. I’ll move on to the next thing. I’ve got ten more where that came from.

I hadn’t given it to Christoph, I haven’t given it to Sam Jackson. I gave it to three motherfucking actors. We met in a place and I put it in their hands. Reggie Hudlin’s agent never had a copy. It’s got to be either the agents of Dern or Madsen. Please name names.

Tarantino believes that the CAA who represents Dern were the cause of the leak but when Fleming gave them a call they denied this allegation. CAA gave the explanation that Tarantino may have given out a copy of the script without a watermark making it impossible to pin point exactly who was to blame since it would have been photocopied then passed around.

Instead, the director will move on to another project with a meaty part for Dern:

The idea was, I was going to write two scripts. I wasn’t going to shoot the Western until next winter, and I have been full of piss and vinegar about the other one. So now I’ll do that one.

I’m sure you’ll be hearing about copies of the script roaming around, and people offering up their opinions of the “great Tarantino western that could have been”. Tarantino is fine with that, but is still stung by the betrayal:

I am not talking out of both sides of my mouth, because I do like the fact that everyone eventually posts it, gets it and reviews it on the net. Frankly, I wouldn’t want it any other way. I like the fact that people like my shit, and that they go out of their way to find it and read it. But I gave it to six motherfucking people! Starting this week, I’ll be setting meetings with publishers.

Kind of a letdown here. You’ve got to be careful especially when you are a most sought after director like Tarantino. I’m sure the leak was due to carelessness on an agents part but until then we can only speculate what really happened.