Movie fans rejoiced when Quentin Tarantino revealed that his next project would be a western called 'The Hateful Eight.' But that didn't last long -- the script leaked, there was a major brouhaha (and the promise of legal action), and Tarantino said that the film wouldn't be made. And then Tarantino announced a one-time-only live reading of the script ... and then, at the live reading, he announced that the film was back in the works and that he was hard at work on draft two.

Tickets to the live reading went for $150-$200 (with all profits going to Film Independent at LACMA), but most reviews indicate that the three hour performance was worth the price. Tarantino assembled a dream cast for the event, bringing in Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Bruce Dern, Tim Roth, Walton Goggins, Michael Madsen and others to tell the story of a group of strangers stranded by a blizzard in the post-Civil War American West. Tarantino put on quite a show, engaging with the audience and openly directing and correcting his cast as they read the screenplay.

It was a good thing that everything went over so well, since Tarantino used the event to announce that he was definitely not shelving 'The Hateful Eight.' He specified that the performance would be of the first draft and that the script would be rewritten, saying that the final of the film's five "chapters" (titled "Black Night, White Hell") would be scrapped and redone from scratch. This meant that the live reading was the only time this version would ever be performed.

We still don't know any details, but it's heartening to hear that Tarantino isn't going to give this one up. It sounds too promising, especially if he can get the same cast for the film version. After all, even the weakest Tarantino efforts are better than most movies and this certainly does not sounds like a weak Tarantino effort.

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