Tarantino’s ‘Hateful Eight’ shores up supporting cast as cameras roll

Almost a year to the day after an irate Quentin Tarantino declared that he would shelve his ensemble western “The Hateful Eight” over a script leak, shooting has started on the much-discussed movie.

The Weinstein Co. announced Friday that principal photography has begun in Telluride, Colo., with a cast bolstered by supporting actors Zoe Bell, James Parks, Dana Gourrier, Gene Jones, Keith Jefferson, Lee Horsley, Craig Stark and Belinda Owino. All save Jones have worked with Tarantino before.

They join previously named headliners Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Demian Bichir, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern and Channing Tatum.

Slated for release later this year in “glorious 70 mm,” the film is set in the aftermath of the Civil War and tells the story of a mistrustful group of motley characters who are stranded by a blizzard at a stagecoach stopover in the middle of nowhere.

Their ranks include a bounty hunter (Russell) and his quarry (Leigh), another bounty hunter who’s a former Union soldier (Jackson), a Southern renegade claiming to be the new town sheriff (Goggins) and a cowpuncher (Madsen).

With filming now underway, “The Hateful Eight” closes the door on one of the more unusual preproduction processes in recent memory, which involved the aforementioned row about the leaked script, a legal battle with Gawker Media over alleged copyright infringement, and months of will-he, won’t-he speculation.

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