John Sayles to Write New DJANGO Western with Franco Nero to Star

The Hollywood Reporter posted yesterday that John Sayles has been engaged to write a new DJANGO film. The first DJANGO film was made by the great Sergio Corbucci in 1966. While there are a couple of semi-official sequels, the name Django caught on with quick buck exploitation producers and they slapped it on many films with no connection to the original character or film, much like the way the name Bruce Lee was appended to numerous films that had nothing to do with Bruce Lee at all.

It’s a major coup to land not only Sayles but also Nero, who, though in his seventies now, is a fine actor and a link to the authentic spaghetti western past. No director has been announced, but perhaps those of us who love Westerns All’Italiana may be forgiven for holding out hope that Enzo Castellari gets the assignment. Castellari has worked with Nero many times and may just be, along with the less action-oriented Sergio Martino, the greatest living Italian genre director.

You can see rare, and hysterical, footage of Castellari on set below (starting at about 5:22). It’s a corny, staged (and weirdly dubbed) interview, but you get an idea about Castellari’s vigorous style.

The whole doc is pretty great actually. Enjoy, and start getting excited.