Quentin Tarantino wrote and directed The Hateful Eight, a 2015 American revisionist Western film. Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Demián Bichir, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, and Bruce Dern star as eight strangers seeking shelter from a blizzard in a stagecoach stopover sometime after the American Civil War. The Hateful Eight had a limited roadshow release on 70 mm film on December 25, 2015, before going wide in theaters on December 30, 2015. Though the depiction of race relations and the violent treatment of Leigh’s character divided opinions, the film was praised for its direction, screenplay, score, cinematography, and Leigh’s performance.
The Hateful Eight’s Story
Bounty hunter John “The Hangman” Ruth (Kurt Russell) and his fugitive prisoner Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) come across another bounty hunter (Samuel L. Jackson) and a man who claims to be a sheriff while racing toward the town of Red Rock in post-Civil War Wyoming. The group travels to a stagecoach stopover on a mountain pass in the hopes of finding shelter from the blizzard. The eight travelers are greeted by four strangers and quickly learn that they may not make it to their intended destination. In the dead of winter in Wyoming, a bounty hunter and his prisoner seek refuge in a cabin currently occupied by a gang of criminals.
A stagecoach hurtles through the wintry Wyoming landscape after the Civil War. They meet Major Marquis Warren (an infamous bounty hunter) and Chris Mannix (a man claiming to be Red Rock’s new sheriff) along the way. The group seeks shelter at Minnie’s Haberdashery after becoming separated in a blizzard. When they arrive, they are greeted by strangers: Bob, who claims to be looking after the place while Minnie is away; Oswaldo Mobray, the Red Rock hangman; Joe Gage, a cow puncher; and confederate general Sanford Smithers. The eight travelers learn that they may not make it to Red Rock after all as the storm sweeps the mountainside.
Production of The Hateful Eight
Quentin Tarantino announced in November 2013 that he was working on another Western. He attempted to write the story as a novel, Django in White Hell, a sequel to his film Django Unchained but realized that the Django character did not fit the story. On January 12, 2014, The Hateful Eight was announced as the title. Tarantino considered publishing the script as a novel after it was leaked online in January 2014. Reginald Hudlin, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern, and Tim Roth, he said, were among the people he had given the script to. In this version of the script, Warren and Mannix try to kill Gage in retaliation by forcing him to drink poisoned coffee, resulting in a firefight in which all of the characters are killed. Daisy Domergue is a “Susan Atkins of the Wild West,” according to Tarantino’s vision. Peter Breck’s performance in The Big Valley inspired Madsen to create Joe Gage.
Filming of The Hateful Eight Film
The state of Colorado agreed to fund the film’s production with $5 million on September 26, 2014, and the entire film would be shot in Southwest Colorado. On December 8, 2014, principal photography began on the Schmid Ranch near Telluride, Colorado. The budget was estimated to be between 44 to 62 million dollars. Greg Nicotero, best known for his work on the AMC television series The Walking Dead, created the film’s special make-up effects.
The Hateful Eight Film’s Cinematography
The Hateful Eight was shot on a 65mm film by cinematographer Robert Richardson, who previously worked with Tarantino on Kill Bill, Inglourious Basterds, and Django Unchained. He used three modern 65mm camera models: the Arriflex 765, the Studio 65, and the 65 HS from Panavision. Ultra-Panavision 70 and Kodak Vision 3 film stocks 5219, 5207, 5213, and 5203 were used to transfer the film to 70 mm film for projection. It was the widest release in 70 mm film since Ron Howard’s Far and Away in 1992 until Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk two years later. The movie employs Panavision anamorphic lenses with a 2.76:1 aspect ratio, which was popular in the 1950s and 1960s. In the 70mm roadshow release, which was color-timed photochemically by FotoKem and the dailies were screened in 70mm, the filmmakers also avoided the use of a digital intermediate. Yvan Lucas at Shed/Santa Monica created a digital intermediate from which the wide digital release and a few 35mm prints were created.
The Hateful Eight Guitar Accident
Accidents in the movies happen all the time, and they can lead to hilarious reactions from co-stars, as Kurt Russell did when he smashed a $40,000 guitar while filming Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight. Daisy plays the guitar and sings along in one scene. John asks if there’s another verse after listening to her song for a while, and she graciously agrees. When she’s finished singing, John snatches the guitar from her hands and smashes it against a nearby pole. Daisy is taken aback by this action, and not just because of John’s actions. Jennifer Jason Leigh’s reaction was genuine because her co-star has just smashed a rare, expensive, 150-year-old Martin guitar, not one of the many replicas made for the movie. Russell’s character destroyed an antique 1870s Martin guitar lent by the Martin Guitar Museum, which was not a prop.
Kurt Russell went a little too far in portraying a cunning bounty hunter. According to Dick Boak, the museum’s director of archives and special projects for C.F. Martin & Co., the production company refused to reveal how the guitar was ruined. The guitar was supposed to be switched with a copy to be destroyed, but this was not communicated to Russell. The plan was to get up to that moment, cut, trade guitars, and then smash the double. It’s impossible to blame Russell for destroying the real guitar if he was never told about the plan for how this scene was going to be filmed. In introspection when Steve Harvey announced the wrong winner of the Miss Universe 2015. While this may be a costly oversight, this piece of trivia will cause you to reconsider the scene the next time The Hateful Eight airs. The company will no longer lend guitars to movies as a result of the incident.
The Hateful Eight’s Movie Release
The Weinstein Company (TWC) acquired the worldwide distribution rights to the film on September 3, 2014, for a fall 2015 release. TWC agreed to sell the film worldwide, but Tarantino insisted on personally approving the film’s global distributors. Not only the history of the famous game Super Mario was the talk of the town but also the story of the expensive accident from the movie, The Hateful Eight.