Quentin Tarantino scraps western after script leak

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 22 (UPI) -- U.S. filmmaker Quentin Tarantino told Deadline.com he is scrapping "The Hateful Eight" after the script for his planned western was leaked.

The "Django Unchained" and "Pulp Fiction" writer-director said he has only shown the screenplay to a handful of people -- most of whom he has worked with before -- and feels betrayed because the script is now making the rounds in Hollywood.

"I'm very, very depressed," Tarantino told Deadline.com Tuesday. "I finished a script, a first draft, and I didn't mean to shoot it until next winter, a year from now. I gave it to six people, and apparently it's gotten out today."

Tarantino said he learned about the leak when his longtime representative, Mike Simpson, told him he was getting phone calls from agents pitching their clients for roles in the picture.

"I gave it to one of the producers on 'Django Unchained,' Reggie Hudlin, and he let an agent come to his house and read it," Tarantino said. "That's a betrayal, but not crippling because the agent didn't end up with the script. There is an ugly maliciousness to the rest of it. I gave it to three actors: Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern, Tim Roth. The one I know didn't do this is Tim Roth. One of the others let their agent read it, and that agent has now passed it on to everyone in Hollywood. I don't know how these [expletive] agents work, but I'm not making this next. I'm going to publish it, and that's it for now. I give it out to six people, and if I can't trust them to that degree, then I have no desire to make it. I'll publish it. I'm done. I'll move on to the next thing. I've got 10 more [ideas] where that came from."

Tarantino said he had hoped Dern, Roth and Madsen would star in "The Hateful Eight," but because of the breach he doesn't know exactly what he will do next.

"I hadn't given it to Christoph [Waltz,] I haven't given it to Sam Jackson," he told Deadline.com about the "Eight" script. "I gave it to three [expletive] actors. We met in a place, and I put it in their hands. Reggie Hudlin's agent never had a copy. It's got to be either the agents of Dern or Madsen. Please name names."