With a filmography and backstory that’s so steeped in film culture, murmurings around Quentin Tarantino project are bound to gather cinephile interest. In such, Tarantino’s latest- The Hateful Eight, set for release this Christmas- rouses curiosity not just for existing in the first place, but also for it’s unique format. The western, in which Tarantino both wrote and directed, will be presented as a limited engagement roadshow this holiday season. In Ultra Panavision 70mm. Tarantino now hints that audiences attending the roadshow will be treated to slightly different version of the film than general multiplex audiences.
The 70mm prints are said to include an overture and an intermission with a running time of three hours, two minutes. It’s a very old-fashioned model- original prints of classic movies ranging from Gone With the Wind to Ben-Hur included overtures and intermissions, akin to a attending a stage performance. This model appears fitting for a filmmaker not just interested in classic movie-making but classic filmmaking mores. Tarantino has long been a celluloid proponent and runs the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles with a strict non-digital mandate. Regular, non-70mm prints of the movie will be about six minutes shorter (not counting the intermission). Tarantino said of the different cuts of The Hateful Eight:
The 70 is the 70. You’ve paid the money. You’ve bought your ticket. So you’re there. I’ve got you. But I actually changed the cutting slightly for a couple of the multiplex scenes because it’s not that. Now it’s on Showtime Extreme. You’re watching it on TV and you just kind of want to watch a movie on your couch. Or you’re at Hot Dog on a Stick and you just want to catch a movie.
The Weinstein Company will release The Hateful Eight in limited release on Christmas Day with a wide expansion set on January 8, 2016. Of the 70mm viewing experience, recommended by Tarantino, the distributor is making plans with exhibitors to pay for the installation of 70mm projectors in the hopes that perhaps as many as 100 screens can play the roadshow print of the film. The Weinstein Company similarly took this measure (albeit on a much smaller level) with the 2012 Paul Thomas Anderson film The Master, which also was presented in 70mm. Last year, Christopher Nolan was also able to release his science fiction epic Interstellar in 70mm.
The Hateful Eight is set in post Civil War Wynoming, where bounty hunters are trapped in a blizzard on top of boundless betrayals and deceptions. Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction), Kurt Russell (Furious 7), Jennifer Jason Leigh (Margot at the Wedding), Bruce Dern (Nebraska) and Channing Tatum (Magic Mike) are among the actors that appear in the film. Tarantino last film was Django Unchained, a similar historical reconstruction which won two Academy Awards, including one for Tarantino’s screenplay.
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