Quentin Tarantino’s ‘The Hateful Eight,’ Kurt Russell’s Glorious Facial Hair Grace The EW Cover

It seems like a lifetime ago when Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight script leaked early and he threatened to sue everyone and vowed never to release it. But that’s all cocaine under the sofa now, and this week the cast is on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, with a non-specific release date set for later this year. Shooting in 70 mm, the cast includes Walton Goggins, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Channing Tatum, Demian Bichir, and Bruce Dern. I don’t know about you, but I like to think Michael Madsen feeds QT’s monitor lizards when he goes on vacay.

In THE HATEFUL EIGHT, set six or eight or twelve years after the Civil War, a stagecoach hurtles through the wintry Wyoming landscape. The passengers, bounty hunter John Ruth (Russell) and his fugitive Daisy Domergue (Leigh), race towards the town of Red Rock where Ruth, known in these parts as “The Hangman,” will bring Domergue to justice. Along the road, they encounter two strangers: Major Marquis Warren (Jackson), a black former union soldier turned infamous bounty hunter, and Chris Mannix (Goggins), a southern renegade who claims to be the town’s new Sheriff. Losing their lead on the blizzard, Ruth, Domergue, Warren and Mannix seek refuge at Minnie’s Haberdashery, a stagecoach stopover on a mountain pass. When they arrive at Minnie’s, they are greeted not by the proprietor but by four unfamiliar faces. Bob (Bichir), who’s taking care of Minnie’s while she’s visiting her mother, is holed up with Oswaldo Mobray (Roth), the hangman of Red Rock, cow-puncher Joe Gage (Madsen), and Confederate General Sanford Smithers (Dern). As the storm overtakes the mountainside stopover, our eight travelers come to learn they may not make it to Red Rock after all… [via Collider]

Sounds great. But I hope that black eye looks better in 70 mm, because right now it looks like it came from that after school special where Ben Affleck takes steroids and beats up his girlfriend. And if there’s one thing make-up artists should have learned in the past 20 years, it’s how to paint black eyes on Jennifer Jason Leigh. I bet that’s an entire class at Hollywood make-up artist school.

Now then. Tell me more about these powerful babies.