Tarantino reveals that one of The Hateful Eight is related to a character in one of his other films, offers clue

Tarantino served up a riddle for fans

Everyone loves a bit of ‘shared universe’ trivia when it comes to an auteur’s movies, and apparently The Hateful Eight contains such a secret.

In addition to the fictitious Red Apple cigarettes that have featured in several Tarantino films, The Hateful Eight apparently also features a character “related” to one from elsewhere in Tarantino’s oeuvre.

“I don’t want to say it point blank ‘boom!”, but if you’re a fan of my work and are familiar with it you could be a bit of a detective, he told Digital Spy.

“I will say that there is one character amongst the eight that is related to one of my other characters in one of my other films.

“I can’t explain the relation because that would tip my hat a little bit too much,” he continued, teasing: “The only other clue I can give…is that the actor was originally cast as that character in the other film but they weren’t able to do it due to a scheduling conflict.”

*Spoiler below*

Like all good detectives, we headed to Wikipedia for answers.

Django Unchained is the obvious candidate for the movie in Tarantino’s riddle (part of a Western trilogy he's working on), unless his characters are capable of time travel.

It seems that Kurt Russell (John “The Hangman Ruth” in The Hateful Eight) was at one point attached to play Ace Woody, a character who would eventually be merged to form Billy Crash. We can therefore fairly safely assume that it is the bounty hunter and slave death match trainer who are related.

Interestingly, Billy Crash was played by Walton Goggins, who also appears in the new movie.

The Hateful Eight opens in a few UK cinemas (for bizarre reasons) on 8 January.