One of the most anticipated movies of the year is coming dangerously close to knocking on the door of our favorite movie theaters. The latest film from sometimes celebrated, sometimes controversial director Quentin Tarantino, The Hateful Eight, is just weeks away from our viewing pleasure (as long as you’re not a spokesman for some police unions). But Tarantino is releasing The Hateful Eight in a manner different than the typical release. Shot in 65mm andprojected in 70mm, The Hateful Eight will be released using a roadshow release. What’s a roadshow? Well, one of the film’s stars, Samuel L. Jackson, is here to tell you in this latest video about The Hateful Eight.
This video isn’t a mere history lesson as to the release strategy of the film. It’s also an in-depth exploration of the cameras and lenses used to create The Hateful Eight‘s expansive panoramas using Super Panavision technology, a technology that is rich in cinema history though underutilized for nearly a half-century. If you’re not already sold on Tarantino’s latest exploration into the western genre, and this video does nothing for you — well, I don’t know what to say. For the rest of us sane people, The Hateful Eight opens in 70mm on Christmas Day before its regular release on January 9th. Film nerds, however, have no choice but to take the roadshow option.
The official synopsis for The Hateful Eight:
In THE HATEFUL EIGHT, set six or eight or twelve years after the Civil War, a stagecoach hurtles through the wintry Wyoming landscape. The passengers, bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) and his fugitive Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), race towards the town of Red Rock where Ruth, known in these parts as “The Hangman,” will bring Domergue to justice. Along the road, they encounter two strangers: Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), a black former union soldier turned infamous bounty hunter, and Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), a southern renegade who claims to be the town’s new Sheriff. Losing their lead on the blizzard, Ruth, Domergue, Warren and Mannix seek refuge at Minnie’s Haberdashery, a stagecoach stopover on a mountain pass. When they arrive at Minnie’s, they are greeted not by the proprietor but by four unfamiliar faces. Bob (Demian Bichir), who’s taking care of Minnie’s while she’s visiting her mother, is holed up with Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), the hangman of Red Rock, cow-puncher Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), and Confederate General Sanford Smithers (Bruce Dern). As the storm overtakes the mountainside stopover, our eight travelers come to learn they may not make it to Red Rock after all…
