Deadline has learned that Sony Pictures is moving forward with a big-screen follow-up to Django Unchained, with Academy Award winner Brian Helgeland (Mystic River, L.A. Confidential) set to continue the story in Django/Zorro, which started life as a comic book originally published in 2014.
Billed as an "official sequel" to 2012's Django Unchained, the seven-issue crossover comic was co-written by Quentin Tarantino and Matt Wagner and published by Dynamite Entertainment. This movie is said to be "a new story that follows on from the comic series."
The closest Tarantino has come to making a full-blown sequel outside of Kill Bill Vol. 2, the comic does exactly what the title suggests. It pairs up the slave-turned-bounty hunter played by Jamie Foxx with Don Diego de la Vega, the version of Zorro played by Anthony Hopkins in the 1998 movie, The Mask of Zorro. In that, he passed the Zorro mantle to Alejandro Murrieta (Antonio Banderas).
It's not clear which version of Zorro would appear in this movie, though Foxx will presumably reprise his role as Django. According to the trade, Tarantino will not direct, though "this film has his blessing to move forward at Sony, where he’s expected to make his final film as director."
Here's the synopsis for the Django/Zorro comic book:
"Set several years after the events of Django Unchained, Django again pursues evil men in his role as a bounty hunter. Taking to the roads of the American Southwest, he encounters the aged and sophisticated Diego de la Vega by sheer chance. Django is fascinated by this unusual character, the first wealthy white man he's met who seems totally unconcerned with the color of his skin... and who can hold his own in a fight.
Django hires on as Diego's bodyguard, and is soon drawn into a fight to free the local indigenous people from brutal servitude. Learning much from the older man (as he did from King Schultz), he discovers that slavery isn’t exclusive to his people, as he even dons the mask of Zorro in their mission of mercy!"
There was some chatter about Django/Zorro becoming a movie in the mid-2010s, but it never came to fruition. Helgeland is no stranger to strong leading men, having penned the likes of Man on Fire, 42, and Legend.
Tarantino still hasn't decided what his last film will be. His playwriting debut, The Popinjay Cavalier, is headed for a West End premiere early next year, while he's enlisted Fight Club helmer David Fincher to take charge of a Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood sequel, The Adventures of Cliff Booth starring Brad Pitt.
Stay tuned for further updates on Django/Zorro as we have them.