Hateful Eight reading: Tarantino's western will get second draft

THIS ARTICLE MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

Following a staged read-through of his new film The Hateful Eight, Quentin Tarantino has revealed he is working on a second draft of the script with an entirely different ending.

As it stands, all of the main characters die in a shootout at the film’s denouement, but the director assured the reading’s audience that this was the only time Hateful Eight would be ‘seen’ with that ending. He said that the film was divided into five chapters, and that the fifth chapter, which is titled Black Night, White Hell, would either be rewritten or cut out completely.

These major changes are almost certainly in response to the leaking of the film’s script at the beginning of this year, after which Tarantino threatened to shelve the film. Tarantino has filed a lawsuit against Gawker for disseminating the script online.

The reading, which took place at the Ace Hotel in Los Angeles, lasted over three hours, and played to an audience which included Harvey Weinstein. Tarantino directed his actors from a podium as they took to the stage.

The Hateful Eight is set between 8 and 12 years after the end of the American civil war,  and centres on a bounty hunter (played at the reading by Kurt Russell), his quarry (Amber Tamblyn), and a war veteran (Samuel L. Jackson). Along with various other ragtag characters, they shelter from a blizzard in a haberdashery store,  where the entirety of the rest of the film takes place. Feuds, shootings, a poisoned pot of coffee and a hefty dose of Tarantino’s particular brand of black humour ensure that proceedings are kept interesting, before the characters all blow each other away, although according to the director that ending won’t make it to the screen.

As yet there is no word on when production will begin on The Hateful Eight, or when we can expect its release.