Kurt Russell: Tarantino’s ‘Hateful Eight’ could shoot in early 2015

Quentin Tarantino’s on-again, off-again project “The Hateful Eight” looks to be on again, according to potential cast member Kurt Russell.

While promoting his new documentary, “The Battered Bastards of Baseball” (about his father Bing’s minor league team), Russell told “Good Day Philadelphia” that Tarantino’s ensemble western could roll cameras in early 2015.

“There’s a Tarantino project called ‘Hateful Eight’ that looks like it may go somewhere around the beginning of the year,” Russell said.

If that proves to be the case, it would be the biggest mile marker yet along what has been a winding road for “The Hateful Eight.” News of the project broke in January in an unusual manner, as Tarantino complained to Deadline Hollywood that the script had leaked online and as a result, he would shelve the film and publish the screenplay as a book.

Next came a legal battle with Gawker Media, whom Tarantino sued when the company posted links on its Defamer blog to where the script could be downloaded. Tarantino eventually withdrew the lawsuit.

In April, Tarantino directed a staged reading of “The Hateful Eight” with an all-star cast — including Russell — at the Theatre at the Ace Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. The reading fueled speculation that Tarantino might make the movie after all, and the filmmaker said he was still working on drafts of the screenplay.

He also told reporters at the Cannes Film Festival in May that he had “calmed down a bit” about the script leak, and a recent Showbiz411 report said he hoped to start shooting the film in Wyoming as early as November.

Twitter: @ogettell