Disappointingly, not every film director gets any say in who releases their film around the world, and this often results in deals that seem to do nothing but bad for the project. I've lost count of the amount of interesting indie films left in the lurch by careless, cash strapped or clumsy distributors. But Quentin Tarantino has more power than most, and he's not afraid to wield it. According a new report in The Hollywood Reporter, he's personally assessing every possible distributor. Some of his terms were already published. For one, the film must get its initial release in 70mm. This is going to severely limit the amount of venues where the film will screen, and I fear that it's going to see a bump in ticket price by way of compensation. In the same report, there's word that Netflix were looking to make a global deal for VOD rights. There's no implication of when the VOD release would occur, but given Tarantino's insistence on the film getting a 70mm rollout in advance of even 35mm, I can only imagine streaming video would be way down the line. Production on The Hateful Eight continues. Expect to see the film playing in your local 70mm cinema somewhere around the end of the year. And by "local" I mean "I don't know how far you're going to have to travel to see this film the way Tarantino intended, but chances are, it's going to be a bit of a trip."
Brendon Connelly has been a film writer since the early 90s, with time on the staff of Orbit Magazine, Slashfilm, Bleeding Cool, Den of Geek and many more. He's a long time teacher of film studies and practical filmmaking classes, and has directed music videos, commercials, short films and more. His favourite film is Terry Gilliam's Brazil, his favourite food is pancakes or crepes, and he tries to live his life by the teachings of Kermit the Frog.
