Django Unchained is one of writer-director Quentin Tarantino's most successful movies, and one of the filmmaker's other releases was originally intended to be its sequel. The 2012 movie follows Django (Jamie Foxx), a man freed from his enslavement by Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz). Together they collect bounties, and Schultz teaches Django to become the Fastest Gunslinger in the West. They then attempt to free Django's wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), from Candyland, a plantation owned by the evil Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). After an enormous number of deaths, Django saves Brumhilda, and it's the first truly happy and romantic ending to any of Tarantino's movies.
Django is Quentin Tarantino's best Western movie character. He's theatrical, has a distinct sense of fashion, and is a true hero. More of Django on the big screen certainly would have been welcome. Even though Django Unchained has a definitive ending, as its title character kills Calvin and his family and then burns the Candyland plantation down before riding into the night with Broomhilda, Tarantino had written a sequel to the movie. A Django Unchained 2 was absolutely plausible in the early 2010s, but the filmmaker ultimately turned his next Western movie into a standalone story and removed Django from its cast of characters.
The Hateful Eight Was Originally Called Django In White Hell
Excluding Kill Bill: Vol. 2, which doesn't count because the Kill Bill movies were shot as one movie, Quentin Tarantino never makes sequels, but he came very close in 2015. The Hateful Eight is another Western from the director, but instead of being a sprawling epic, it's set mostly in one location. The movie sees a sheriff, a bounty hunter, a group of bandits, and several other sketchy characters spending a night together in a haberdashery in the middle of a blizzard. And while it's a fantastic standalone movie, The Hateful Eight was originally titled Django in White Hell and intended as a follow-up to Tarantino's 2012 movie.
However, Tarantino ultimately decided to remove Django from the script because he thought the movie shouldn't have a moral center. He said, "I thought it should be a room of bad guys, and you can’t trust a word anybody says" (via Cinema Blend). Every Hateful Eight character is vindictive, and the closest thing to a protagonist in the isolated ensemble movie is Major Marquis Warren, but even he's a conniving character who's hard to truly connect with. But it's clear that The Hateful Eight and Django Unchained were once connected, as the 2015 movie takes place shortly after the earlier feature, and Warren shares Django's love of theatrics, too.
It Wouldn’t Have Been The First Unmade Tarantino Sequel
While a sequel to Django Unchained sounds like a first for Quentin Tarantino, who has never revisited any of his movies, he has considered making sequels many times throughout his career. The director considered a Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs crossover movie about Vincent and Vic Vega, and he has spoken at length about Kill Bill: Vol. 3. There are tons of unmade Tarantino movies, but most interestingly, Django in White Hell isn't even the only unmade Django Unchained sequel. Tarantino worked with Jerrod Carmichael to write Django/Zorro, but that movie would have cost too much to make. As Carmichael told GQ, they'd written a $500 million movie.