The Weinstein Company has just staked their claim of Christmas Day 2012 as the release date for Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained.
The Spaghetti Western is full of casting hype, as the rumor mill churns with news that Jamie Foxx is the frontrunner for the lead role, ahead of previous possibilities Idris Elba and Will Smith. The plot finds the freed slave Django teaming up with a German bounty hunter to find his wife, who's held captive by a sadistic slave-owner. Leonardo DiCaprio is in negotiations to play the villainous Calvin Candie, Samuel L. Jackson will be by his side as his man-servant house-slave, and Christoph Waltz will train Django in the ways of the bounty hunter.
Django Unchained is the only film scheduled to open on December 25th as of now, but it's not without some steep competition. Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and the Johnny Depp-starring action/adventure The Lone Ranger are scheduled to hit theaters on December 14th and December 21st, respectively.
[Via Box Office Mojo]
