Buzz about Quentin Tarantino making a follow-up to Django Unchained where Jamie Foxx’s character would meet Zorro, the pulp comic book character Antonio Banderas played in two movies, has existed for years. Banderas was asked about the project that has never come to pass and said he was enjoy working with Tarantino to play an older Zorro. There’s only one problem: co-writer Jerrod Carmichael said it will never happen.
In a new interview with USA Today, Banderas said Tarantino brought up the idea during an Oscars party in 2020 when he was nominated for Pain and Glory. ” He just came up to me and I was like, ‘In your hands? Yeah, man!’ Because Quentin just has that nature to do those types of movies and give them quality,” Banderas said. “Even if they are based on those types of B-movies of the ’60s and ’70s, he can take that material and do something really interesting.”
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“We’ve never worked together, but it would be great because of him, because of Jamie Foxx, and because of (playing) Zorro again when he’s a little bit older,” Banderas continued. “It would be fantastic and funny and crazy.” Banderes, 61, played Zorro in The Mask of Zorro (1998) and The Legend of Zorro (2005).
The idea for a follow-up to Django Unchained (2012) that would co-star Zorro dates back to at least 2015. That year, Tarantino teamed up with Matt Wagner to write the Django/Zorro comic book series for Dynamite Entertainment. In 2019, sources told Collider that Carmichael was hired to adapt the Django/Zorro comic for the screen with Tarantino. There had not been updated on the project for years until Carmichael told GQ this month that a script really was written. It’s just never going to reach the screen.
“Quentin’s a lunatic who I love, and I’m happy that I got to spend the time,” Carmichael said. “We saw exploitation flicks at the New Beverly, he read me scenes that never made it to his movies, that he had typed out, in his kitchen after making fresh-squeezed lemonade for me. It was really special. It’s actually an incredible, incredible script that came in from that Django/Zorro that I would love for Sony to figure out, but I realize the impossibility of it. But I still think we wrote a $500 million film.”
Although Banderas won’t be working with Tarantino anytime soon, he can be seen in Official Competition, a new movie co-starring Penelope Cruz and about a wealthy businessman trying to produce a hit movie. Banderas also has an unknown role in the upcoming fifth Indiana Jones movie. Disney will release Indiana Jones 5 on June 30, 2023. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, also featuring Banderas, opens on Dec. 21, 2022.
