Three More 'Inglorious Bastards'

More casting news from Tarantino's new war movie to pass along. Inglorious Bastards, which has already had to endure a whole lot of pre-production drama between adding actors and running afoul of most Germans for its portrayal of their countrymen during WWII, will start shooting on October 13th, still hoping for a summer 2009 theatrical release that would follow a debut at Cannes. We know Brad Pitt, Eli Roth, and Mike Myers are in the cast. The last I heard, B.J. Novak from The Office and Samm Levine were considering jumping aboard (although the news has moved so quickly on this movie, a confirmation may have come and I missed it), and now three more names are being added, none of whom have even been mentioned before. Diane Kruger (National Treasure), Christoph Waltz, and Paul Rust are all on board, with Waltz playing Col. Hans Landa, the film's antagonist, and Kruger will portray a German actress named Bridget Von Hammersmark, who is sympathetic to the cause of the American troops. Originally, that role was linked to Nastassja Kinski. Though there's now word on why she passed, it does merit pointing out that almost as many people have joined the cast as have not, with Leonardo DiCaprio, David Krumholz, Simon Pegg, and now Kinski all supposedly in talks for roles in the film for a while before not being cast. One question I have yet to get a straight answer to relates to the structure of the film. Earlier this summer, Tarantino was raving about his own script (a bad, egotistical sign), saying he couldn't edit it and it was so long and perfect he'd need to make two movies. Would a big company like Universal go for that, particularly with a scheduled release date of June? Would they go for a three-hour-plus endeavor with the same release date? Or will QT capitulate and give us two hours of solid entertainment? As an exploitation film, I can't see the need for something longer than The Godfather, especially when the bulk of the action is head-scalping mayhem. The script that leaked online was 160 pages or something, so maybe he's edited it down a little bit and they'll shoot for a 150-minute run time. That seems to be the new summer standard for a major film. If so, can the notoriously deliberate Tarantino shoot and edit that film in less than seven months?

Comments

[Will]

I remember that Scorcese sort of went through this with Gangs of New York: It was in production for years, touted as being his masterpiece, and ultimately, not discounting Daniel Day Lewis' performance, though full of visual ambition, fell totally flat.

Scorcese finally got that monkey off his back and went on a run of great film-making with The Aviator and The Departed.

After QT gets Inglorius Bastards out of his system he can get to what he was born to do: The long awaited remake of DW Griffith's Birth of a Nation: Imax Edition. Rumor has it that this project, if Tarantino has his way, will be 3 days long, and will use up over 8 million rolls of IMAX film stock.

The Weinsteins appear to be interested...

[Lost Wilson]

Kinski reportedly dropped out because she is now feverishly working on a documentary about the making of Inglorious Bastards called "Bastard Hearts: The making of Inglorious Bastards".

[Spud]

DiCaprio, on the other hand, dropped out because he actually read the script and declared that it sucked donkey sack.