Leonardo DiCaprio will play the main villain in Quentin Tarantino’s spaghetti Western slave movie Django Unchained. Or will he? A tweet from Creative Screenwriting editor Jeff Goldsmith stating, “DiCaprio WILL play villain Calvin Candie in Tarantino’s Django Unchained!” sent movie bloggers into a frenzy Monday night. Goldsmith followed up by saying, “QT wanted him for I.B. & now has him!”
Rumors were already swirling on who would play the lead slave-hero with Will Smith and Idris Elba emerging as favorites. Elba tweeted this past Sunday that he was, “Having one of the biggest meetings of my professional life… Meeting a controversial director for a controversial part.” From there, the rumor mill began to spin.
In a script which was leaked out earlier this year, the Calvin Candie character is described as an evil slave owner who got the wife of Django as his slave.
Tarantino had considered DiCaprio for the Hans Landa role in Inglorious Basterds, before Christoph Waltz won the part (and the Supporting Actor Oscar). Waltz is already attached to play German bounty hunter Dr. Schulz, who teams up with Django to fight against Calvin and free his wife from slavery.
One of the main issues confronting Tarantino is that DiCaprio is scheduled to begin filming Baz Luhrman’s adaptaion of The Great Gatsby around the same time as Django begins filming. It is very possible that he could be rescheduled and still work on both films.
Tarantino fans have always been a vocal group. What do you think of Leo playing the main baddie in QT’s latest?
