While it looks like it may be a long time before Quentin Tarantino fans get to see The Hateful Eight on the big screen, Film Independent announced today that it is organizing a staged reading of the script in Los Angeles later this month. Tarantino will be there himself to direct the event.
The reading will take place at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Thursday, April 24 at 8 p.m., Film Independent said. It’s billed as a once-in-a-lifetime experience, as there will be no recording devices of any kind allowed. The event will not even be live-streamed online. Tarantino isn’t even going to announce the cast until the reading starts.
Film Independent’s announcement also includes the first official synopsis of the script. It does sound like a stage play, as it centers on a group of stagecoach passengers who spend more time together than they’d like after a blizzard throws them off course. The group “includes a competing pair of bounty hunters, a renegade Confederate soldier and a female prisoner in a saloon in the middle of nowhere,” according to the announcement.
Tickets will not be cheap. They go on sale on Wednesday and you must be a member of the Members of Film Independent, LACMA Film Club and the New York Times Film Club to get them online. Each will cost $200 and there will be a limit of two per member. If any are left, they will be available for the general public on April 16.
Tarantino shelved the script in January when it was leaked and he was angry, to put it mildly. He is currently suing Gawker, which posted a link to a site hosting the script.
The director won an Oscar for his Django Unchained script in 2013.