Claim: The Hateful Eight's script was leaked in January 2014.

The Hateful Eight is a 2015 American revisionist Western mystery film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino . It stars Samuel L. Jackson , Kurt Russell , Jennifer Jason Leigh , Walton Goggins , Demián Bichir , Tim Roth , Michael Madsen , and Bruce Dern as eight strangers who seek refuge from a blizzard in a stagecoach stopover some time after the American Civil War .   Tarantino announced The Hateful Eight in November 2013 , having originally conceived it as a novel and sequel to his previous film Django Unchained -LRB- 2012 -RRB- . After the script leaked in January 2014 , he cancelled the film but announced that he had changed his mind after directing a live reading of the script at the United Artists Theater in Los Angeles . Filming began on December 8 , 2014 , near Telluride , Colorado . The original score composed by Ennio Morricone , the first for a Tarantino film , was Morricone 's first complete Western score in 34 years , and his first score for a high-profile Hollywood production since Brian De Palma 's Mission to Mars in 2000 .   Distributed by The Weinstein Company in the United States , The Hateful Eight was released on December 25 , 2015 , in a roadshow release in 70 mm film . It had a wide digital release on December 30 , 2015 . It received positive reviews , with Leigh receiving considerable praise . For his work on the score , Morricone won the Golden Globe and his first Academy Award for Best Original Score . The film also earned two Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress -LRB- Leigh -RRB- and Best Cinematography -LRB- Robert Richardson -RRB- .