Back in May I told you about the next Tarantino movie – Django Unchained. At that time it was believed that Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) was already locked in, and that it was rumored that star of the original movie Django – Franco Nero, would also be asked to take part. In addition, everyone just assumed that Sam Jackson would appear in his 6th Tarantino scripted movie.

Well as the production has rounded out, we’ve gotten some more names, the biggest of which was probably Leonardo DiCaprio. For the last month or so rumors have circled around DiCaprio being pegged to play the film’s villain – Calvin Candie…

“a charming but ruthless proprietor of Candyland, a despicable club and plantation in Mississippi where female slaves are exploited as sex objects and males are pitted against each other in “mandingo” style death matches. Candie is a slave’s worst nightmare and the freed slave Django must cross him in order to reclaim his wife.”
– Deadline

And while Leo’s name is attached to this all over the place, as far as I can figure, it isn’t actually official yet. If it does happen though, I think DiCaprio would be great. I’d love to see him in a villain role, and he has a real desire to work with the best directors in the industry with all the Scorsese movies in recent years, and Christopher Nolan’s Inception last summer. This guy is, in my opinion, one of the top actors in Hollywood today. As DeNiro, Pacino, Hackman, and Hoffman all ease into ‘Grandpa Roles’, the next generation of great actors is really starting to emerge, and Leo is at the forefront. However, like I said, he’s not confirmed yet to my knowledge.

Another big name QT was trying to wrangle in for the project was Mr. Blockbuster himself – Will Smith. This was the focus of our article in May, and now we’ve got an answer from the Fresh Prince: No. 

So, once Will Smith (against the advice of everyone) turned down the lead in Quentin Tarantino’s newest movie, the search for ‘Django’ began anew. With Smith out, QT reportedly talked to Idris Elba, Terrence Howard, and Chris Tucker all before ultimately offering the role to Smith’s Ali co-star; Jamie Foxx, who has accepted.

Foxx is coming off of an extremely entertaining role in Horrible Bosses (which was awesome), where he played a character named ‘Motherf#*ker Jones’ and will now play a freed slave out for revenge. This should prove to be Foxx’s most talked about  role of since Ray.

In addition to Jamie Foxx, it’s recently been announced that Kevin Costner will also join the cast. That means that Costner should be slated for a huge year in 2012 between this and his role as Pa Kent in Man of Steel. According to Deadline, Costner will play ‘Ace Woody’, the wicked plantation underboss who trains slaves to fight to the death.

Jamie Foxx’s Ray co-star Kerry Washington has also been tapped to appear as Django’s wife, and the motivation for his entire drive in the movie.

In addition, if you can believe the “always dependable” IMDb, Treat Williams (who we mentioned back in May) and Keith Carradine are both in the running to be included as well. Carradine is of course the younger brother of David Carradine, who was best known to QT fans as ‘Bill’. Now, while I’m pretty impartial towards Williams (even though I loved ‘Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead’), I really liked Carradine in his run on Dexter and I think he’d be a really under-rated addition to what’s shaping up to be one of the best casts of 2012…

So, what do you think? Excited or what?