Django Unchained director Quentin Tarantino has given his blessing for a feature film based on the Django/Zorro crossover comics.
Quentin Tarantino has given his blessing for a Django/Zorro movie.
The 63-year-old filmmaker co-wrote a seven-issue comic book crossover with Matt Wagner exploring his Django Unchained slave-turned-bounty hunter with The Mask of Zorro, and Sony Pictures is moving forward with a film version of the mash-up.
As reported by Deadline, the project is in early development with LA Confidential writer Brian Helgeland writing a new story following on from the comic books.
In the source material, Django developed a bond with Don Diego de la Vega, who was played by Anthony Hopkins in 1998’s The Mask of Zorro.
In that movie, Don Diego passed on the Zorro mask to Alejandro Murrieta (Antonio Banderas), while it’s expected the movie will focus on a young Zorro.
Tarantino – who has made it clear his next 10th film will be his last as director – won’t be at the helm of Django/Zorro.
However, it’s understood he has giving his blessing for the new movie, which would essentially serve as a sequel to 2012’s Django Unchained, which starred Jamie Foxx as the titular bounty hunter.
Tarantino has been discussing the crossover for a long time, and at one point Jerrod Carmichael was on board to write the script, but it was shelved for unknown reasons.
In 2022, Carmichael told GQ: “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 realise the impossibility of it.”
It’s noted that Foxx and Banderas are yet to sign on for the new version of the project, but Banderas has made it clear that he’s been approached before.
Also in 2022, he told USA Today: “[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. 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’s most recent feature film at the helm was 2019’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, with his 10th movie set to mark his retirement.
At one stage, that was set to be The Movie Critic with Brad Pitt, but the drama has since been scrapped.
Tarantino’s first feature film was 1992’s Reservoir Dogs’, which he followed up with Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill: Volume 1 and Volume 2 and Death Proof.
Up next was Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight, and while he’s not directed a film since Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, he is debuting new West End play The Popinjay Cavalier in 2027.
Django / Zorro movie in the works with Quentin Tarantino’s blessing
