Amid all the exciting reveals that have happened so far at this year’s Comic-Con International, here’s one that should send a specific breed of nerd—like, admittedly, your author—over the proverbial moon: Ennio Morricone will be scoring The Hateful Eight. Not licensing old music to appear on the soundtrack, but writing a new original score for the film. We’re hoping it has lots of trumpets.
That was one of several interesting developments to come out of the Hateful Eight panel earlier this afternoon, which was attended by director Quentin Tarantino (loquacious as always) and the eponymous eight. The presentation began with a “history lesson” narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, explaining the logic behind Tarantino’s decision to shoot and release the movie in 70mm. (Fun fact: The film was shot with vintage lenses also used to make 1959’s Ben-Hur and 1963’s It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.)
During the panel itself, Tarantino said he intends to make at least one more Western, saying, “You have to make at least three Westerns to call yourself a Western director.” Asked about his enraged reaction to the original screenplay for The Hateful Eight leaking online early last year, Tarantino said, “The reason that [the leak] bothered me so much is that this is one I wanted to go through three drafts; there’s certain plot threads and I knew I had another couple of drafts to go.”
Tarantino said he has no plans of retirement at the moment—contradicting statements he’s made in the past saying he would retire after making 10 films—and that he, like every other director out there, finds the current TV renaissance compelling. He also claims he’s open to making a more substantial TV project (he’s directed episodes of ER and CSI in the past), saying, “part of the thing I don’t like about digital projection, it’s like HBO in public. If that’s what movies become, I [might] just move to television and cut out the middle man.”
The hateful eight themselves were reportedly in a loving mood, all heaping praise on their director; Bruce Dern said, “I was excited to come to work every day with this man because I thought we just might have a chance to do something that’s never been done.” This was all in anticipation of seven minutes of footage from the film, cut together to introduce the characters and how they end up stranded in a cabin in the middle of a blizzard. It’s unlikely that The Weinstein Company will officially release this sizzle reel—similar to a seven-minute Django Unchained sneak peek that played at Comic-Con in 2012—online, but, as we all know, smartphones can record video so we’ll see how that plays out.
A new poster for the film also premiered to coincide with the SDCC; you can see it below.