Viggo Mortensen To Join The Hateful Eight

This past summer the “Django Unchained” writer/director hosted a very exclusive live-reading of “The Hateful Eight” script, and helping him bring it to life on stage were the likes of Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Dern, Michael Madsen, Kurt Russell, James Remar, Amber Tamblyn, Walt Goggins, and Zoe Bell.

While it may very well turn out that all of those stars return to work on the film version, but now new rumors are circulating saying that the filmmaker is looking at yet another big name to join his latest cast.

A source has reported to the New York Daily News that Quentin Tarantino was recently spotted at the Greenwich Hotel in New York with “History of Violence” star Viggo Mortensen, and, if the story can be believed, they were having a very energetic conversation about what appeared to be a screenplay.

The insider was a guest at the hotel who overheard the director ““boisterously” discussing the possibility of the actor playing a “ruthless gang leader” character. When reached for comment on the story, Moretensen’s representation didn’t respond.

“The Hateful Eight,” which was at one point shelved due to what Tarantino called “a personal betrayal,” is another western written and directed by the filmmaker that opens following a bounty hunter who is making his way through a desert town during winter and traveling with a female prisoner.

They wind up picking up a few extra travelers along their journey, but are eventually forced off the road by a horrific blizzard and must take shelter in a local haberdashery. Of course, because this is a Tarantino film it doesn’t take long before tempers begin to flare and violence starts to erupt.

It has been officially revealed that “The Hateful Eight” will be going into production at the start of 2015, and while no official release date has been announced, it’s expected that the movie will be completed in time to come out in the later months of next year.