The Hateful Eight poster revealed at Comic Con

The Hateful Eight opens in the States on Christmas Day and in the United Kingdom on January 8th, with a cast that includes Tarantino alumni Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern, Walton Goggins, James Parks, Zoe Bell, Dana Gourrier, Keith Jefferson, Lee Horsley, Craig Stark and Belinda Owino alongside Channing Tatum (Foxcatcher), Demian Bichir (A Better Life), Jennifer Jason Leigh (The Spectacular Now) and Gene Jones (No Country for Old Men).

After screening never-before-seen footage of The Hateful Eight for thousands of fans at San Diego Comic-Con, director Quentin Tarantino announced that the famed composer Ennio Morricone will score the film-the first Western he has scored in over 40 years.

Tarantino’s nerd credentials are impressive: he said he had attended Comic-Con not only as a kid, but more recently in a Mexican wrestler’s mask so he wouldn’t be recognized. “By losing film projection, we’ve already ceded too much ground to the barbarians. Still three drafts to go”. Russell said of working with Tarantino, “I mean this sincerely and I think the great actors sitting here would agree: I would wish that everyone has the opportunity to work with Quentin once”. So even though I yelled and screamed, I continued doing what I planned to do.

When Quentin Tarantino’s revenge western The Hateful Eight hits theaters this holiday season audiences are going to be able to experience a true throwback, and in more ways than one. After the next audience member admitted he’d read the leaked script (to audible gasps from the Hall H crowd), Tarantino talked about that whole controversy. “Just a little more public than usual”. “But I will eventually make a third Western so I can officially call myself a Western director”. But I do kind of like the idea of 10 and done.

Tarantino’s main nerd cred, however, is still filmic: the 65mm lenses he used on The Hateful Eight have a rich history. “But even if I do end on ten, that’s still a decade away”, he added, a reminder that his handcrafted films don’t show up with quite the frequency of, say, a Woody Allen joint. He also noted that it could be less than ten movies if he can’t make them how he wants to (i.e. shot on film, not projected digitally, etcetera). “If I wrote a script and it’s eight hours, then we’ll be all good”. “I can make miniseries – these mini-novels for television”.