Quentin Tarantino's 8th film, The Hateful Eight, will hit theaters in 2015 and bring together an eclectic group of actors - some who have played a few of Tarantino's most iconic characters, others who are recent additions to the party. The story is set in the West - as was Quentin's last film Django Unchained - and centers around a group of strangers who end up stuck in the same Wyoming establishment during a blizzard and find themselves in a plot of deception and betrayal.

In addition to a recent teaser that detailed some of the characters, we were given a good look at Samuel L. Jackson, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Kurt Russell, followed by a gallery of images showing off the eight main members of the film. And now, ten new images have been released, offering a first glance at production on the set as well as a few characters in action.

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A Better Look

The exclusive photos come from EW, each of them accompanied with insights on production:

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If these images reveal anything it's that Quentin is really tackling the Western motif - a genre he fully embraced with Django Unchained and showed interest in as early as Kill Bill - but is adding a cold twist. Production for the film took place in a ranch outside of Telluride, Colo., and involved a lot of snowy, cold visuals (as seen in the image of Samuel Jackson and Demian Bichir). Quentin apparently screened Kurt Russel's The Thing for the cast so they can get an idea of what makes a good below-zero movie. Kurt Russel spoke a bit about it, saying:

"The Thing was colder, quite a bit. This was cold but it wasn't uncomfortable for me. Plus, I had the big fur coat on."

The Hateful Eight will be Quentin's third period piece - the first being Inglourious Basterds, the second being Django Unchained - and is set (as the official synopsis says) "six or eight of twelve years after the Civil War." But while the scope of both Bastards and Django were rather large - i.e, they took place over the course of long periods of time and dealt with multiple locations - The Hateful Eight seems to focus on mainly one location for a much shorter duration, allowing Quentin to do what he does best: film a bunch of people in a room talking. And a plot like this seems to be coming at an interesting time.

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Reservoir Dogs Homage

Quentin has spoken openly about wanting to retire after making ten films, so it should come as no shock that as his career grows closer to its end, he pays homage to where it all began. Tarantino's directorial debut was Reservoir Dogs, a heist film that never showed the heist and primarily took place in one location where characters would weave in and out and learn more about each other as the story progressed. Given the official synopsis (and seeing everyone above in close quarters with each other) The Hateful Eight appears to be following in familiar footsteps. Michael Madsen (shown above lying on his back and sporting full cowboy attire) actually spoke about the similarity between the two films:

"You have to ask Quentin, but I do think it's a bit of an intentional homage to Reservoir Dogs. It's one of those pictures where nobody really knows who anyone really is. It's kind of a masquerade party."

Walton Goggins who plays Chris Mannix (a "man in a black hat" that claims to be the town sheriff) added some insight on how the film is presented:

"The film really is presented as a play. It's filmed mainly in one room and it's as if every time he says, 'Action,' the curtain goes up."

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The Tatum Factor

What has really been well kept under wraps thus far is the character that Channing Tatum plays. When word first got out that Tatum wanted to play a role in The Hateful Eight, it made sense for him to join the cast; Quentin has done a very good job during the tenure of his career of pairing together iconic actors with current popular actors (Harvey Keitel and Tim Roth in Reservoir Dogs, John Travolta and Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction, Robert De Niro, Pam Grier and Samuel L. Jackson in Jackie Brown, Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz in Django Unchained), and Tatum is definitely a popular actor right now, so there is still a lot to speculate with regards to who he might be paired with (if anyone) and what role he will play - or how big the role will be, for that matter. He could end up having a quick cameo in the film the same way Jonah Hill did in Django (Tatum is no stranger to small cameos, he did one in This Is the End).

Though there is a lot of hype surrounding The Hateful Eight - and has been ever since Quentin was originally going to shelve the project after the script leak, then did a live reading of the script - there is still a lot more that remains to be seen as we come to closer to the film's release. We still don't have a live-action trailer yet and there is much to be revealed about other characters like Six Horse Judy (Zoe Bell) and O.B. Jackson (James Parks). We'll keep you up to date on any information until then.

Here is the official synopsis for Hateful Eight in case you missed it:

In The Hateful Eight, set six or eight or twelve years after the Civil War, a stagecoach hurtles through the wintry Wyoming landscape. The passengers, bounty hunter John Ruth (Russell) and his fugitive Daisy Domergue (Leigh), race towards the town of Red Rock where Ruth, known in these parts as “The Hangman,” will bring Domergue to justice. Along the road, they encounter two strangers: Major Marquis Warren (Jackson), a black former union soldier turned infamous bounty hunter, and Chris Mannix (Goggins), a southern renegade who claims to be the town’s new Sheriff. Losing their lead on the blizzard, Ruth, Domergue, Warren and Mannix seek refuge at Minnie’s Haberdashery, a stagecoach stopover on a mountain pass. When they arrive at Minnie’s, they are greeted not by the proprietor but by four unfamiliar faces. Bob (Bichir), who’s taking care of Minnie’s while she’s visiting her mother, is holed up with Oswaldo Mobray (Roth), the hangman of Red Rock, cow-puncher Joe Gage (Madsen), and Confederate General Sanford Smithers (Dern). As the storm overtakes the mountainside stopover, our eight travelers come to learn they may not make it to Red Rock after all…

The Hateful Eight is expected to reach theaters by late 2015.

Source: EW