About 15 minutes in I decided I wanted some popcorn, and upon looking at my phone, it appeared that an hour and a half had passed. From what I understand, that hasn’t been the standard reaction across the Internet, but for me at least, Django was incredibly easy to watch, and not for a moment did I want it to end.

The structure is right in tune with many Spaghetti Westerns (itself being one more in a long series of unofficial sequels to Sergio Corbucci’s 1966 film Django): the compacted serial with each episode lasting a half hour or so. There’s an overarching plot, but just as much does it like to get sidetracked in subplots.

The main story centers around Django (Jamie Foxx), a runaway slave many times over who only wants to be reunited with his wife. He has the good fortune of meeting up with Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), a German dentist turned bounty hunter, hot on the trail of the notorious Brittle Brothers. Django, a former acquaintance of the Brittles, is the only man alive who knows what they look like, and Schultz, gleefully operating within the laws and well versed in all the loopholes, buys Django to help him hunt down the bounty.

Like any good Tarantino script, a very large number of quality actors wanted to be apart of it. This leads to lots of people expressing public interest in taking roles only to have to bow out  when schedules do not align. As was the case early on in production when Jonah Hill reportedly was cast in the film.

Well things have finally come full circle as Deadline reports that Hill has indeed joined the cast after all:

The Weinstein Company has set Jonah Hill to play a role in Django Unchained, which is in production. I’m trying to find out who he’ll be playing, but am told it won’t be Scotty Harmony, the kid who loses Django’s slave wife Broomhilda to Calvin Candie… Hill was eyed for the role early on, but had to turn it down because his schedule was so busy. He’s back in another role.

Good for Hill and good for the movie to add another seasoned actor in what might be a bot part. Often times you hear people knock a film for ‘wasting’ a skilled actor in a smaller role. I actually take the opposing stance, the better the actor you can get for any role only enhances the movie.

Django Unchained hits cinemas on Christmas Day.

With a few directors working in Hollywood today, you never really know what to expect and that makes their films even more fun to watch. One such director is Quentin Tarantino who’s upcoming Django Unchained promises to be very unexpected indeed.

Previously, we brought you some stills from the upcoming film. And now, there’s more. This time around we get a better look at the actors and a shot of the director in action, which is always fun.

In case you’re not familar with the film, it’s set two years before the Civil War and focuses on a former slave called Django (Jamie Foxx) who must join forces with a ruthless German bounty hunter called Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) to free his captive wife from the clutches of evil plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio).   See what I mean, unexpected.

Check out all the new pics after the break. Look for Django Unchained to hit theaters Christmas Day.

Of the 42 massively anticipated films coming out over the next year, only one of them is a new Tarantino film. Django Unchained is one of the most exciting concepts to come down the pike in a long time, and the addition of such an amazing cast only cements the expectations.

Entertainment Weekly has unchained the first official shots from the film showcasing three of its high class stars. The first shot looks incredibly western-y with Christophe Waltz and Jamie Foxx looking fantastic in some period gear.

The second image is far more exciting. Leonardo DiCaprio as evil plantation owner Calvin Candie, who makes his strongest slaves fight each other to the death. This cruel basterd has Foxx’s wife, and the plot of the movie will generally revolve around his attempts to save her.

With a Christmas release date, hopefully we should be seeing some actual footage soon. Inglorius Basterds and Kill Bill were high water marks for Tarantino’s visual style, so there is great excitement to see what he does with a western sandbox. The possibilities are staggering when a filmmaker is on a career high, his concept is solid gold and has the cast to pull it off.

Check out the full pictures after the jump.

Westworld (1973) marks the feature film debut of Sci-fi writer Michael Crichton who had recently met success in Hollywood with the film adaptation of his famed novel The Andromeda Strain. Westworld stars Richard Benjamin (Peter Martin) James Brolin (John Blane) and Yul Brynner (The Gunslinger).

Westworld is set in the near future (now passé) where a resort known as Delos, comprised of three resort communities gives its adult patrons the opportunity for $1000 a day to live out their fantasies as either an old west desperado, a medieval knight, or a hedonist in the pre-Christian Roman Empire. The park is also home to human like androids that are engineered to look, talk, and react just like humans.

Peter Martin (Benjamin) accompanies his best friend John Blane (Brolin) who has visited Westworld before. Peter begins asking John how the theme park operates and most importantly, what can they expect while enjoying their two week stay as wild west outlaws. After their orientation and then being equipped with authentic old west clothing and pistols, Peter and John arrive at the Westworld theme park by stagecoach where Peter is in awe of the park’s authenticity.

The origins of The Gunstringer are not what most people would expect. At Comic-Con in San Diego, TwistedPixel CEO Michael Wilford let us in on the story that has already spread throughout the internet that the pitch for the game came about during the time span of a bathroom break.

After talking to TwistedPixel about the Kinect technology, Microsoft executives went to the bathroom. Michael and one of the other’s on his team looked at a skeleton marionette on the wall of the Mexican restaurant they were at and came up with the pitch by the time the Microsoft suits had returned. The rest, as they say, is history.

Gameplay:

At first, the Gunstring appears as a fairly simple concept. Players use one hand to control the motion of the character left, right or jumping while their other hand aims an imaginary gun at up to six targets. Players fire by lifting their right hand quickly just like they would back in the childhood days of playing cowboys and Indians or cops and robbers.

There is something to be said for the immediate nostalgia brought to this game with that one simple action. Not only does it have a control that is intuitive to the Kinect sensor for the action it represents, but it brings people back to their childhood which makes it almost impossible not to like.

Whether its ninjas, ducks, cowboys or Indians, everything in the Old West wants to take out the Gunstringer and the player needs to be able to shoot it out before it gets to him or at least get out of the way.

Some days it just doesn’t pay to get outta bed. First, the news broke this morning that Ridley Scott is jumping aboard the sequel/reboot train once again with a new Blade Runner movie which, let’s face it, is basically a terrible idea and completely unnecessary.

Now word comes that his brother Tony is prepping a reboot of Sam Peckinpah’s western classic The Wild Bunch. WTF? Sorry Tony, but that’s about as stupid an idea as rebooting or making a sequel to Blade Runner. Oh, wait. . .

Instead of mining classic films looking for good ideas you obviously can’t come up with yourself, how about finding some smart writers to come up with some ideas for you? I’m sure you can find one or two talented writers in all of Hollywood.

If you’re having trouble, I’ll get some friends of mine to send you over some scripts. Really, it’s no trouble. In the meantime, stick to making ridiculous movies about trains that won’t stop or trains that get taken over by terrorists or, well, you get the idea.

Please, leave the actual thinking to others. It’s painfully obvious you’re not capable of doing any yourself.

Oh, on another note, nobody plays baseball in the rain. It’s just stupid.

It what may come as sad news for fans of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower who were anxiously awaiting its translation from book series to feature films and TV series, it looks like Universal has decided to pull the plug. News came late yesterday that the studio decided to not move forward with the extremely ambitions adaptation of the series which would have started with a trilogy of films and two limited-run TV series.
book

So now the filmmakers, which include star Javier Bardem, director Ron Howard, producer Brian Grazer, screenwriter Akiva Goldsman and Mark Verheiden, who was set to co-write the TV elements with Goldman, need to look for a new place to set up. It’s going to be a tall order finding a studio that’s willing to go on the hook for what would surely be a commitment of at least $500 Million (or more).

It’s not that hard to understand why Universal was reportedly more interested in doing one film to see what happens before moving forward with the rest. In this climate that’s a big bite for any studio to take and they were probably looking to minimize their risk. Makes sense.

In case you’re not familiar withThe Dark Tower series, it centers on the last living member of a knightly order of gunslingers named Roland Deschain who becomes humanity’s last hope to save civilization as he travels the land on a journey towards the Dark Tower. Along the way, he encounters all manner of characters, both good and bad, in a world that’s part Old West and part magical realm.

It’s quite an interesting series so let’s hope it finds a way to the big screen. In the meantime, Marvel is doing some excellent adaptations of the series which are plotted by Robin Furth and scripted by Peter David. Stephen King serves as Creative and Executive Director of the comics.

You have to hand it to Quentin Tarantino. Besides being a very talented director who tells interesting stories well he’s also got the ability to put together some great ensemble casts. From his fist film Reservoir Dogs, through his most recent Inglorious Basterds, the director never ceases to lock in some great actors for his films.

He’s continuing that trend with his upcoming Sergio Leone-inspired western Django Unchained. He’s already got Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Samuel L. Jackson and Leonardo DiCaprio. Now, according to Deadline, we can add Oscar-winner Kevin Costner to the mix as well.

According to the report, Costner would play Ace Woody, “the sadistic trainer of the male fighting slaves who entertain the white patrons of Candyland as well as the female slaves who are forced to be prostitutes. The club and ranch are owned by Calvin Candie (DiCaprio) and Ace Woody is the one who pits the “mandingo” fighters against one another.” Sounds like a nice guy. Mmm, not.

Once Coster is set for the role he and DiCaprio should make an interesting pair of bad guys. I’m sure it will be very interesting to see how it all turns out. The film is set to go into production in the Fall with an eye to a late 2012 release.

We’ll bring you more on this film as we get it.

Quentin Tarantino will be making time during the pre-production of his upcoming western, Django Unchained, to appear in a film from legendary spaghetti western star Franco Nero. Before the announcement of what Tarantino’s next project would be, we heard rumors that he would be working with Nero on his next project.

Most assumed once Tarantino’s western was announced, that Nero would be involved in this film. Many were surprised that once the cast for Django Unchained had been announced, including names like Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, Christoph Waltz and Samuel L. Jackson, that Nero’s name wasn’t among them.

It seems the rumors were true and they will be working together, just not on Django. According to Nero, Tarantino has agreed to make an appearance in the actor’s upcoming film The Angel, The Brute and The Wise. So now, instead of Nero acting in a Tarantino’s film, we’ll get Tarantino acting in Nero’s.

In a recent interview with Box Office Magazine, Nero explained his pitch to Quentin. “I said ‘Quentin, we are going to do a western. It would be an homage to Sergio Leone and John Huston, the director that discovered me, and would you be so kind to play a cameo?’ And he said…‘Oh, great, so I can come with Robert Rodriguez and my friends to play them?’ I said, yeah! That would be great!”

It seems it is Nero’s lucky day, as he gets a cameo from not only Tarantino, but he also get Robert Rodriguez and some of  Tarantino’s other celebrity friends.

Even though Tarantino’s role is more of an extended cameo than a co-starring role, Nero will undoubtedly have to accommodate Tarantino and his friends when it comes to production.

Before you get all bent out of shape and start asking why no-one learned anything from Wild Wild West, take a listen to the idea first. Quentin “homages aren’t stealing” Tarantino has decided to take to the world of spaghetti westerns and “reboot” the classic franchise Django.

Here’s the most recent info from Heat Vision:

Sources prepped for those meetings say Tarantino would like Smith to star in the film, the script for which has been making the rounds in recent days to wide acclaim. No official offer has been made to Smith, and any deal would of course be subject to working out financials, which might be difficult given Smith’s status as one of Hollywood’s few sure-thing stars.

Smith is being teed up for the title role of Django, a freed slave who seeks to reunite with his slave wife, a journey that will see him team with a German bounty hunter to take down an evil plantation owner.

Tarantino wrote the bounty hunter part with Christoph Waltz in mind, according to insiders. The German ends up training Django and helping him seek his wife.

It’s very rare for a film to hit the number one spot at the box office several weeks after its release, but that is exactly what the Coen Brothers’ True Grit accomplished this weekend. The film finally shook the monkey (Little Fockers) off its back for a clear shot at the number one slot.

Grit made about $15 M over the weekend, and because it was a god-awful weekend at the box office, that was good enough for a first place finish.  Business was down almost 30% from last weekend. Entertainment Weekly reports that it could be the worst January weekend since 2000!

The good news is that the Coen Brothers just surpassed the $100M milestone for the very first time.  This is the first film they have made that has made it to into the club, so to speak.  Good for them. True Grit will surely continue to succeed in theaters, particularly if the film receives any Oscar nominations.