Amber Tamblyn will reportedly star in Quentin Tarantino's next movie 'The Hateful Eight'

What’s next for filmmaker Quentin Tarantino? Well, at first the Oscar-winner seemed as though he was perhaps most interested in making a third ‘historical revenge-fantasy’ movie in the vein of Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained – one titled Killer Crow and set during WWII; several months later, however, Tarantino revealed that he’d begun developing a script for a different sort of western throwback than Django. The screenplay in question is now known to be titled Hateful Eight, and it looks as though Tarantino will begin production on the project in time to make a 2015 release date.

Those who’ve been following Hateful Eight‘s progress thus far have endured something of a roller coaster ride – one that started when Tarantino abandoned his original plan to shoot the film after the screenplay leaked online and temporarily shelved the project. Then, after a well-received live reading of the Hateful Eightscript, Tarantino began to back off his initial threat of cancellation – and last time we reported on it, principal photography was heavily rumored to be gearing up for a Fall 2014 start.

Kurt Russell, who is expected to share leading man duties with Samuel L. Jackson in Hateful Eight, recently spoke with Fox 29 News Philadelphia (hat tip to /Film) about his prospective reunion with Tarantino. There, he offered a more concrete update on the situation, when he said that production on Hateful Eight “looks like it may go somewhere around the beginning of the year.”

Russell starred in Tarantino’s Grindhouse flick, Death Proof, and was going to play a supporting role in Django Unchained, but ended up having to take a pass. By the sound of it, though, a Russell/Tarantino reunion on Hateful Eight is more likely than not to happen, which means that filming will have to wait until after Russell’s finished shooting his role in the horror/western Bone Tomahawk that begins production this fall – meaning it’s unlikely that Hateful Eight will begin production before the first quarter of 2015.

The Hateful Eight script is being revised by Tarantino, but the general setup – one set a few years after the U.S. Civil War – is expected to remain the same as that featured in the live script reading. Russell and Jackson, as such, will play a seasoned bounty hunter duo (imagine Vincent/Jules fromPulp Fiction, in the Old West), who are transporting a young woman (Amber Tamblyn, who cameoed in Django Unchained‘s theatrical cut), when a winter storm traps them at a Wyoming mountainside lodgings – along with a colorful assortment of unscrupulous and/or downright peculiar folk.

Hateful Eight looks to be a typical Tarantino talk-heavy affair, albeit one that’s largely restricted to a single setting – and with most of the actors who participated in the live script reading expected to reprise their roles in the film, Tarantino’s western could easily make it to theaters by late 2015, if shooting happens as planned. Indeed, next year it seems that cinephiles can look forward to having new films by Quentin Tarantino, David O. Russell, and possibly the Coen Brothers (given the speed at which Hail Caesar is coming together), among other directors with truly unique voices.

Sandy Schaefer blogs at Screen Rant.