Brian Helgeland, an Oscar-winner for “L.A. Confidential,” has been tapped to write a crossover film about characters from “Django Unchained” and “The Mask of Zorro.”
Although based on the 2014 comic series co-written by Quentin Tarantino and Matt Wagner, the untitled movie will revolve around a new story. Plot details aren’t clear, though the film is expected to follow the exploits of Django — the bounty hunter played by Jamie Foxx in Tarantino’s 2012 revisionist Western “Django Unchained” — as he forms an unlikely alliance with the legendary masked vigilante known as Zorro — portrayed by Anthony Hopkins in 1998’s “The Mask of Zorro” and Antonio Banderas in 2005’s “The Legend of Zorro.”
The project is in early development at Sony Pictures. A director hasn’t been set, but Tarantino won’t be stepping behind the camera.
Tarantino has talked about the “Django” meets “Zorro” tale for years, at one point courting the comedian Jerrod Carmichael to write a draft of the script. That version was shelved for unknown reasons, with Carmichael telling GQ in 2022: ” It’s actually an incredible, incredible script that came in from that Django/Zorro that I would love for Sony to figure out, but I realize the impossibility of it.”
Foxx and Banderas haven’t signed onto the film. However Banderas has previously confirmed that Tarantino approached him to star in the crossover movie, so it’s at least on his radar.
“[Tarantino] talked to me, I think on the Oscar night [in 2020] when I was nominated for ‘Pain and Glory.’ We saw each other at one of those parties,” Banderas said earlier in 2022. “He just came up to me and I was like, ‘In your hands? Yeah, man!’ Because Quentin just has that nature to do those type of movies and give them quality. Even if they are based on those types of B-movies of the ’60s and ’70s, he can take that material and do something really interesting.”
Tarantino hasn’t directed a feature since 2019’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” The filmmaker has long said he’ll retire after making his 10th movie, which at one point was supposed to be a drama called “The Movie Critic” with Brad Pitt. He’s since scrapped that plan. Tarantino made his feature debut with the 1992 independent crime drama “Reservoir Dogs” and has directed eight others: 1994’s Palme d’Or-winning “Pulp Fiction,” “Jackie Brown,” “Kill Bill: Volume 1” and “Volume 2,” “Death Proof,” “Django Unchained” and “The Hateful Eight.” Up next, Tarantino is set to debut a new play, a British farce titled “The Popinjay Cavalier,” on the West End in 2027.
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