Quentin Tarantino‘s 8th feature film The Hateful Eight opens on Christmas Day, and it’s already creating huge buzz. With six Critics Choice nominations and two Golden Globe noms, we can tell you that it’s everything you want out of a Tarantino flick. From the masterful acting and the exquisite dialogue, to the gory violence this is not a film to miss. In celebration of Tarantino’s latest masterpiece here are 8 things you didn’t know about The Hateful Eight.
1. For the first two weeks the film will be shown Roadshow style.
The film will be showing in 44 major cities around the country in 100 theaters all in glorious 70mm film. This is super wide and high resolution film which means it’s about as crisp and bright as you can get. For the Roadshow, the film will run 187 minutes, instead of 167 minutes and will be show in two acts with a 12 minute intermission in between. We know that seems long but trust us, it definitely doesn’t feel that way.
2. If you attend a Roadshow you’ll get goodies.
Tarantino has promised T-shirts that say “I saw The Hateful Eight in 70mm” as well as programs and posters.
3. The film connects with Django Unchained.
If you were a fan of Tarantino’s 2012 slave western that you’re certainly in for a treat with The Hateful Eight. This is a mix between a Western and a Murder Mystery. However, it still deals very heavily with race relations in the United States.
4. Tarantino is not too concerned about calls to boycott the film.
At a Black Lives Matter rally earlier this year Tarantino said, “When I see murders, I do not stand by. I have to call a murder a murder and I have to call the murderers the murderers.” Since then Tarantino has clarified his comments by saying he does not think that all cops are murders (obviously). However, some people are still talking about boycotting The Hateful Eight. The veteran director has said that he hopes it doesn’t come to that, but he also stands by his statement.
5. The final cut of The Hateful Eight is nothing like the first draft that got leaked back in 2014.
Even if you got a hold of the script back then you know nothing; it’s been changed quite a bit.
6. The cast shot some of the film on a LA sound stage that was chilled to below freezing temperatures.
Though much of the film was shot in the Colorado Rockies, Tarantino wanted the stuff shot on the sound stage to mimic the frozen tundra as much as possible.
7. Tarantino used some of the lenses that were used to shoot the Hollywood classic Ben-Hur.
The lenses were fitted onto modern day cameras, and the crew had to test them to be sure that the could hold up in the freezing temps, luckily they did.
8. The Hateful Eight is being called a horror film.
Tarantino has said it’s not quite horror (and it’s not but there are some gruesome murders), but the film’s composer Ennio Morricone was inspired but Italian horror films.
BONUS: The Pulp Fiction director would love to do TV!
At an NYC press conference for The Hateful Eight, Tarantino expressed his desire to turn Elmore Leonard‘s novel Forty Lashes Less One into a mini-series for television. Though he has stated that he would not even shoot on digital for TV. He will shoot on film, always.
