Quentin Tarantino wants Jamie Foxx to play the title character in the director’s upcoming film Django Unchained, according to Deadline. The actor is currently in talks for the lead role. Foxx would play a freed Southern slave attempting to recover his wife in a movie that’s been described as a violent Mississippi-set spaghetti Western. Christoph Waltz, who won a supporting actor Oscar for Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, is expected to play a German bounty hunter who teams up with Foxx’s Django, while Leonardo DiCaprio is circling the role of a nasty plantation owner who wins Django’s wife in a poker game.
Will Smith was previously considered for the title role, but reportedly passed, while Chris Tucker and Idris Elba were also rumored to be in the running. Tarantino, who wrote the script and will direct, is scheduled to start shooting in November. The Weinstein Company will release Django Unchained next year on Christmas Day.