Speculation reached a fever pitch today that Leonardo DiCaprio was close to signing for the villain role Monsieur Calvin Candie in Quentin Tarantino's upcoming western Django Unchained.
DiCaprio, who Tarantino has been itching to work with for years, would join Christoph Waltz in the pseudo western.
Waltz recently signed on to play a German bounty hunter who teaches his skills to a freed slave and then helps the slave battle an evil plantation owner in order to save his wife. Waltz last worked for Tarantino in Inglourious Basterds in a part that was originally offered to DiCaprio.
Will Smith, Idris Elba and Jamie Foxx also started discussions to join the film.
Samuel L. Jackson was also expected to join the film as Candie’s villainous house slave.
Tarantino described his plans to pay homage to the 1966 spaghetti western Django starring Franco Nero as well as the Takashi Miike film Sukiyaki Western Django (which co-starred the Pulp Fiction filmmaker).
"I'd like to do a Western. But rather set it in Texas, have it in slavery times, With that subject that everybody is afraid to deal with," Tarantino said last year. "Let's shine that light on ourselves. You could do a ponderous history of slaves escaping on the Underground Railroad. Or, you could make a movie that would be exciting."