One of Quentin Tarantino’s best movies, Django Unchained, is getting a sequel… sort of.
Back in 2014, Tarantino and Matt Wagner co-wrote a seven-issue miniseries for Dynamite Entertainment, which saw Django, played by Jamie Foxx, left, in the movie, team up with the legendary Zorro to free a town under control by an evil cartel.
While the comic was a sequel to the movie, this new adaptation is being penned by LA Confidential’s Brian Helgeland for Sony, and it’s not expected to see Tarantino or Foxx return as the bounty hunter, meaning that, despite the book it’s based on, it’s unclear if this is a sequel to Tarantino’s movie ir a standalone adventure.
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Either way, it reportedly has Tarantino’s blessing, and with Helgeland writing, it’ll likely be one to keep an eye on.
Early word has it that the movie will not be a direct adaptation of the comic book but rather will follow on from that story – wait, so it’s a sequel to a sequel but isn’t a sequel to the original? My head hurts – in the comic series Zorro’s alter ego was Don Diego de la Vega, whereas this new story is rumoured to be seeing the introduction of a younger Zorro, much like in Martin Campbell’s 1998 Zorro movie, in which Anthony Hopkins played De la Vega and Antonio Banderas played Alejandro Murrieta, who took over the mantle of Zorro from the original aging hero.
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In related but completely unrelated news, another Zorro project is currently being developed, which will see the legendary hero stepping into the modern day and acting more like The Punisher.
WTFilms has hired cult horror writer/director Joe Begos, known for Bliss and Christmas Bloody Christmas to develop the new movie, They Call Him Zorro.
The new movie will be based more on Johnston McCulley’s original Zorro story, The Curse of Capistrano, but will be filtered more through a horror lens with Zorro driving around LA killing people with chainsaws (!?) and shotguns.
WTFilms co-head and producer Gregory Chambet said of the project: “This is not your parents’ Zorro. In our iteration, the masked folk hero has more to do with dark and violent characters such as The Punisher or The Crow.
“What if instead of being a coward by day, sword-yielding funny scoundrel by night, Diego Vega came back for vengeance in the form of a scary, brutal vigilante.”
The official synopsis reads: When Diego Vega is framed by a group of dirty city officials for a crime he didn’t commit, he escapes from prison and starts a relentless no-holds-barred vengeance on corruption and crime in present-day Los Angeles. The media quickly finds a name for the masked vigilante riding a black El Camino armed with chains, machetes, electric saws, and a sawed-off shotgun: Zorro.
Begos said of the project, which he’s filming in LA: “We want to bring back the feel and visual texture of action references such as To Live and Die in LA, RoboCop, or Hard Boiled… We will have done our job right if people start dressing up as this new version of Zorro for Halloween.”
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I think this could be a lot of fun. Back in 2014, there was a lot of buzz that the comic might eventually become a big-screen outing with Foxx and Tarantino both involved, but obviously, that never happened. It would be great if they could make this an official continuation of both the movie and the comic series, building Django’s world into something much, much bigger (yes, I know DC/Vertigo did a seven-part comic adaptation of Tarantino’s script, which included scenes and details not in the movie).
Thoughts? I know you have them, and I wanna hear ’em all.
The comic’s synopsis reads:
Featuring a story by Oscar Award-Winning Writer/Director, and Django creator Quentin Tarantino, and award-winning writer/artist/creator Matt Wagner!
The official sequel to Django Unchained in the first-ever comic book sequel ever done of a Tarantino film! Set several years after the events of Django Unchained, Django/Zorro #1 finds Django again pursuing the evil that men do in his role as a bounty hunter.
Since there’s a warrant on his head back east, he’s mainly been plying his trade in the western states. After safely settling his wife, Broomhilda, near Chicago, he’s again taken to the road, sending her funds whenever he completes a job. It’s by sheer chance that he encounters the aged and sophisticated Diego de la Vega – the famed Zorro – and soon finds himself fascinated by this unusual character, the first wealthy white man he’s ever met who seems totally unconcerned with the color of Django’s skin… and who can hold his own in a fight.
He hires on as Diego’s “bodyguard” for one adventure and is soon drawn into a fight to free the local indigenous people from a brutal servitude, discovering that slavery isn’t exclusive to black folks. In the course of this adventure, he learns much from the older man (much like King Schultz) and, on several occasions, even dons the mask and the whip… of The Fox!
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Marc
Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….
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