Universal Wins Inglorious Bastards Sweepstakes

Universal Pictures seem to have won the Inglorious Bastards sweepstakes, setting themselves up as the major financial backer for QT’s most ambitious project (in terms of size) to date. When the terms are made public, we can expect some major names to be announced not to long after – and given that this is an ensemble war pic – it will be fun to see who Tarantino dreams up for certin roles. Which oldtime actor will receive a career boost? and who from the QT movie clan will make another appearance — so far we have Tim Roth and Michael Madsen as potential showups.  

Whomever gets on board, it will surely determine whether Uni lines up this Cannes-slate project as a summer tentpole picture. With State of Play, Bruno, Drag Me to Hell and Fast and the Furious 4 covering the summer season, they could do a switcheroo taking Tarantino’s WWII fighting Nazi blow-up fest and put it in the place of Michael Mann’s July 1st date for Public Enemies. Setting PE into the autumn season sets it as a potential award contender instead.

Variety states that Paramount was also in the game, but wanted foreign rights – something the Weinsteins probably want to hold onto – and one interesting side note: as we all know QT met with Brad Pitt to play the role of Aldo Raine, but Pitt and Universal had a falling out over State of Play – which Pitt dropped out of at the last minute. Production beings in fall in Germany and France.