This is why we can’t have nice things. According to Deadline, one of the six people Quentin Tarantino sent his Hateful Eight script to leaked it. The director’s response is to throw his hands up in the air, turn it into a book and move onto something else.
“I’m very, very depressed. I finished a script, a first draft, and I didn’t mean to shoot it until next winter, a year from now. I gave it to six people, and apparently it’s gotten out today.”
Tarantino is convinced that it was an agent who leaked the script based on the people he gave it to: Django producer Reggie Hudlin who showed it to an agent, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern, one of those actors’ agents and Tim Roth.
The Poirot mystery element to this (complete with a short list of suspects) gives the whole affair a distracting appeal. Particularly because it’s resulted in Tarantino bailing. For those who see his response as an overreaction, imagine spending a year creating something only to see it out in the open before it’s ready. Before you were ready to present it. And imagine it was leaked by someone within an elite circle whom you trusted.
Fortunately, there are two saving graces. The first is that he plans on speaking with publishers about converting the story into a novel. The second is that he’s got another project already in the mental hopper. No word on what that’ll be or what what genre it is, but this setback, at the very least, doesn’t seem to leave fans in the lurch for a forthcoming Tarantino flick.
However, the response is interesting considering how often Tarantino’s scripts are leaked ahead of production. The director has an explanation for why this leak is particularly egregious:
“I am not talking out of both sides of my mouth, because I do like the fact that everyone eventually posts it, gets it and reviews it on the net. Frankly, I wouldn’t want it any other way. I like the fact that people like my shit, and that they go out of their way to find it and read it. But I gave it to six motherfucking people!”
So maybe next time, when Tarantino gives you a script, keep it to yourself.
Related Topics: Quentin Tarantino
