‘Hateful Eight’ cast includes Samuel L. Jackson, Channing Tatum

Quentin Tarantino has found his “Hateful Eight.”

The titular cast members of his upcoming western are Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Demian Bichir, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen and Bruce Dern, the Weinstein Co. has announced. In addition to the immoral octet, Channing Tatum will also have a role in the film.

“The Hateful Eight” marks Leigh’s, Bichir’s and Tatum’s first time working with the writer-director; the rest of the cast members are Tarantino veterans.

Set in the years after the Civil War, “The Hateful Eight” centers on a mistrustful group of motley characters who are stranded by a blizzard at a stagecoach stopover in the middle of nowhere. The group includes a bounty hunter (Russell) and his quarry (Leigh), another bounty hunter who’s a former Union soldier, a Southern renegade claiming to be the new town sheriff (Goggins), and a cowpuncher (Madsen).

Like its characters, “The Hateful Eight” has a bit of a checkered past. The project first came to public attention in January, when Tarantino complained to Deadline Hollywood that the script had leaked online and that, as a result, he would shelve the movie indefinitely.

A week later, he sued Gawker Media for disseminating copies of the script via its Defamer blog, sparking a legal battle that ended with Tarantino withdrawing the suit. Along the way, the filmmaker frequently dropped hints that he was reluctant to give up on “The Hateful Eight,” including directing a staged reading of an early draft of the script in Los Angeles. (Jackson, Russell, Dern, Madsen, Goggins and Roth participated in the reading.)

At Comic-Con in July, Tarantino confirmed that he would go through with the project, and the Weinstein Co. announced in September that it would distribute the film.

“The Hateful Eight” will shoot in Telluride. Colo., and is scheduled to hit theaters in 2015.

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