Quentin Tarantino shook up the Western genre with Django Unchained. The cult director mixes in the genre cracker from 2012 real references to the era of slavery with brutal revenge action and usual memorable characters like Leonardo DiCaprio as the sadistic villain.
Back then, the lead role was supposed to be cast first with Will Smith, but he Actor star declined because of the violence.
Will Smith wanted Django Unchained to be a love story rather than an inferno of revenge
At the Hollywood Reporter’s annual roundtable in 2015, Will Smith spoke about why he didn’t want to star in Django Unchained. For him, the revenge story went in too brutal a direction:
It was about the creative direction of the story. To me it’s as perfect a story as one could wish for: a guy who learns how to kill to get back his wife who was taken as a slave. This idea is perfect. And it was just that Quentin and I don’t see the same thing in it could.
Check out Yves’ video ranking of all Tarantino films here:
From garbage to masterpiece: we rank all Quentin Tarantino films
Since the conversation back then shortly after the terrorist attacks in Paris took place in November 2015, Smith also referred to it:
I wanted to do this film so badly, but I felt like it was just had to be a love story, not a revenge story. We can’t see what’s going on in Paris [die Terroranschläge] happened and want to make someone pay for it. Violence breeds counter-violence. I just couldn’t see that violence was the answer. Love had to be the answer.
We’ll refrain from commenting on the Will Smith controversy at this year’s Oscars at this point. In the end, of course, Quentin Tarantino has his vision back without compromising on its signature style pulled through. The result was a hit even without developing into a love story. Django Unchained has an impressive average rating of 8.4 from the Moviepilot community.
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Can you imagine Django Unchained as a softer movie?