Jamie Foxx Is Inches Away From Becoming Unchained as ‘Django’

By  · Published on June 23rd, 2011

With a high profile list of black actors like Will Smith and Idris Elba (but somehow without Jaleel White), the casting process for Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained has been a guessing game that played out like casting roulette with a loaded gun of disappointment for fans looking forward to something gritty and exploitative. Will Smith’s name dropping off created a sigh of relief (because the guy couldn’t even suck it up to play a superhero with limp penis problems), Elba going to Pacific Rim meant a great choice became unavailable, and now there’s one name on the list left standing.

Deadline Tombstone is reporting that Jamie Foxx has only to sit across the table from Tarantino and sign some papers before becoming the freed slave who learns to kill from a German dentist-cum-bounty hunter (Chrstioph Waltz) and seeks out revenge on a cruel slave owner (Leonardo DiCaprio).

Foxx is the kind of actor who has serious chops and barely ever gets to use them. Who could have guessed that he and Jim Carrey would make an honest stab at dramatic work back when they were goofing of for In Living Color? Foxx playing Wanda playing Django would no doubt be the high point of any thespian’s career.

Even though everyone on the planet was hoping to see Tarantino resurrect Cuba Gooding Jr’s career, this casting is just about as strong as it gets. Besides, if there’s any disappointment here it’s that Tarantino is taking on Leone instead of doing a Mandingo/Drum-style exploitation fest. Unless that’s actually what he’s doing. Because that would be off the charts amazing.

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