Leonardo DiCaprio May be Circling Villain Role for Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained

Last month it was revealed that Will Smith is the front runner to star in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, a story about the revenge of a slave on his former master. Tarantino has previously expressed that his take on the material is“to do movies that deal with America’s horrible past with slavery and stuff but do them like spaghetti westerns, not like big issue movies…”
While Smith is still rumored for the title tole, today comes word from Creative Screenwriting magazine Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith that Leonardo Dicaprio is in talks to play the evil plantation owner. Variety’s Jeff Sneider heard the same rumor, but neither he or the trade have yet confirmed the rumor.

Tarantino regulars Samuel L. Jackson and Christoph Waltz are in talks to play Stephen, a wise, proud house slave, and a German bounty hunter named Dr. King Schultz, respectively.
In the story, a freed slave seeks to reunite with his slave wife, a journey that will see him team with a German bounty hunter to take down an evil plantation owner named Monsieur Calvin Candie.
Meanwhile, Idris Elba (Thor) is rumored to be in talks to play a role in the film
The plan is to begin filming in the fall.
Tarantino’s idea to mix his pulp style with the historical period motif will be an interesting experiment, but no less strange than the current trend which sees historical characters battling mythological creatures, i.e. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Slayer. It will be interesting to see what the filmmaker comes up with.