Quentin Tarantino’s latest film The Hateful Eight ends with a bombastic bloodbath that you would naturally expect from the auteur, but the finished product on film did differ from the original script and stage reading. Below are some cliffnotes on various changes as stated by a writer from Collider in attendance for that live reading in April of 2014.
– Sheriff Chris Mannix was the sole survivor, although still suffered a fatal wound that will see him bleed out.
– The finale was somehow even more violent and explored the social subtext of the narrative far less, arguably not all.
– Jody had a shotgun, wounded Sheriff Chris Mannix, and inflicted much more substantial damage on Marquis Warren. Essentially, he accomplished much more besides unceremoniously getting his brains blown out after surrendering and emerging from the cellar. James Remar also did the performance, as Channing Tatum wasn’t initially cast.
– Daisy (portrayed by Amber Tamblyn) murdered Marquis Warren with one final gunshot after the above carnage
– Sheriff Chris Mannix murdered Bob, whom was originally French rather than Mexican
– The Lincoln letter is never read aloud, presumably because the stage play doesn’t end with Mannix and Warren as allies with new-found mutual respect. It’s never brought up again after Warren reveals it’s fake.
– Everyone got some kills on each other, as you can probably gather from reading everything mentioned.
– Again, the ending was originally just one claustrophobic and chaotic shootout full of nutshots, bereft of any thematic substance.
– Changes were only made to one chapter.
SEE ALSO: Read our review of The Hateful Eight here
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 (Kurt Russell) and his fugitive Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason 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 (Samuel L. Jackson), a black former union soldier turned infamous bounty hunter, and Chris Mannix (Walton 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 (Tim Roth), the hangman of Red Rock, cow-puncher Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), and Confederate General Sanford Smithers (Bruce 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 out now in the States and opens on January 8th in the UK.
Originally published January 6, 2016. Updated April 15, 2018.
