Beaks here...
It's official official: Quentin Tarantino informed Deadline's Mike Fleming last Sunday night that he has finished his western screenplay, and that the writing of it was rather effortless. Fleming speculates that the completed draft will be turned in to The Weinstein Company within the next two months, at which point casting and all that good stuff will get under way.
I can also confirm that this project is not the spaghetti western Franco Nero spoke about at the Los Angeles Italia festival. So scratch out Nero, Keith Carradine and Treat Williams; that's an entirely different project. I stand by my initial report that Christoph Waltz is on board, but since I'm getting conflicting reports about the tone and content of the screenplay, I'd like to back off calling this a "spaghetti western" (not that Tarantino's previous films have ever fit snugly into one subgenre).
And that's all we know for now. Though it's likely I'll see Tarantino occasionally over the next month at the New Beverly, I'm not going to pester him about this project - and if you'll be in attendance (tickets are on sale now!), I'd ask that you do the same. The New Beverly is cinephile sanctuary. It is Europa. Attempt no scoop-hunting there.
