Any Quentin Tarantino fan will know that the filmmaker is a very vocal advocate when it comes to shooting on film and curbing the dominant march toward digital formats. And it’s just been announced that his latest film, The Hateful Eight, newly acquired by Roadshow Films in Australia, will premiere for a one week exclusive season in 70MM at selected cinemas around the country.
At the American Film Market earlier in the year, Tarantino talked about screening the film as a 70mm event. “We will remind people why this is something you can’t see on television and how this is an experience you can’t have when you watch movies in your apartment, your man cave or your iPhone or iPad,” Tarantino said. “You’ll see 24 frames per second play out, all these wonderfully painted pictures create the illusion of movement. I’m hoping it’s going to stop the momentum of the digital stuff, and that people will hopefully go, ‘Man, that is going to the movies, and that is worth saving, and we need to see more of that.”
Of the logistics, Tarantino continued: “We’re not doing the usual 70 mm, where you shoot 35 mm and blow it up. We’re shooting 65 mm which, when you turn it into a print, is 70 mm. Panavision is not only behind this movie, they look at it as a legacy. They are inventing a lot of the stuff we need, and this is being supervised by my three-time Oscar-winning cinematographer Bob Richardson, who’s back with me after Kill Bill, Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained… We are literally coming out with the biggest widescreen movie shot in the last 40 years.”
Set in a post-Civil War western frontier, the film revolves around eight individuals, beginning with bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) and his fugitive Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh). The pair are racing towards the town of Red Rock where Ruth, known in these parts as “The Hangman,” will bring Domergue to justice. Regular Tarantino actors also star including Samuel L. Jackson, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen and Joe Gage.
The film, of course, hit a major hurdle when the script was leaked, and it looked like Tarantino may walk away from the project. However, he subsequently announced that he was working on a second draft of the film.
No release date has been set yet for Australia, but The Hateful Eight will hit cinemas in the US on Christmas Day this year for a 70MM two-week exclusive window, followed by a theatrical digital release nationwide on January 8, 2016.
