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Trivia / Django Unchained

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  • Acting for Two:
    • James Remar is featured at the beginning of the film as slave trader Ace Speck, and later reappears as Butch Pooch, bodyguard to Calvin J. Candie, which leads to one of the best meta-examples of an Ironic Echo, as Christoph Waltz kills Remar in the beginning, and in return Remar kills him back in the end.
    • In true fashion, Quentin Tarantino plays Robert, one of the Bag Heads, as well as a member of the LeQuint Dickey Mining Company. He's the one who suggests that the bags could have been done better.
  • Banned in China: Despite being heavily edited and shortened by the Chinese censorship board, the Chinese government endorsed this movie for carrying out their anti-American sentiment by making slavery in 19th-century America a central subject, as the United States government has spent many decades accusing China of violating basic human rights at least since the late 1940s. Ironically, Chinese censors removing much of the violence and sex only made Django's history component look whitewashed and depicted slavery as less brutal and inhumane than it was in reality to the viewers. That being said, Django hardly made any money from the Chinese box office.
  • California Doubling:
    • The only thing actually filmed in Louisiana was the Evergreen Plantation, used to represent Big Daddy Bennett's place.
    • Quite a lot of the filming had California double for Texas and Louisiana. Melody Ranch was used for the Daughtrey town set, and the Ahmenson Ranch was used in some backdrops.
    • The mountains where Django and Schultz spend the winter montage are the Grand Tetons near Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
  • Career Resurrection: Jamie Foxx was in a career downturn after his Oscar victory for 2004's Ray, with most of his films afterwards becoming flops critically and/or commercially (besides Dreamgirls). This film's success placed him back on the A-list.
  • Cast the Runner-Up:
    • Jonah Hill was offered the role of Scotty Harmony, a gambler who loses Broomhilda to Candie in a poker game, but turned it down due to scheduling conflicts with The Watch (2012). Sacha Baron Cohen was also offered the role, but declined in order to appear in Les Misérables (2012). Neither Scotty nor the poker game appear in the final cut of the film. Hill eventually did in the film as one of the bagheads.
    • Franco Nero was rumored for the role of Calvin Candie, but instead was given a cameo appearance as a minor character. Nero suggested that he play a mysterious horseman who haunts Django in visions and is revealed in an ending flashback to be Django's father; Tarantino opted not to use the idea.
    • Zoë Bell was considered for Lara Lee Candie-Fitzwilly. She got a much smaller role as one of the Trackers.
  • The Cast Showoff:
    • Jamie Foxx gets to show off his horsemanship in ways that are not strictly plot-relevant, but cool anyway. The horse Django rides is one of Foxx's real ones.
    • Aside from his native German, Dr. Schultz speaks English and French fluently, just as Christoph Waltz does.
    • Ted Neeley, a professional singer, performs a rather eerie "Trackers Chant".
  • Creator's Pest: Quentin Tarantino has said that Calvin J. Candie is the only character he has ever created whom he truly despises.
  • Cut Song: Frank Ocean wrote an original song for the soundtrack, which Tarantino described as "a fantastic ballad that was truly lovely and poetic in every way", but couldn't find a scene to accommodate it. It eventually saw public release through his Tumblr as "Wiseman".
  • The Danza:
  • Descended Creator: Director Quentin Tarantino portrays Robert and a member of the LeQuint Dickey Mining Company.
  • Directed by Cast Member: For the Latin American Spanish dub produced in Mexico, Gerardo García was the ADR director and one of the additional voices.
  • Distanced from Current Events: Although the Sandy Hook shootings didn't result in this movie postponing its release date, in spite of its violent content, the film's Los Angeles premiere scheduled to take place on December 18, 2012 was reduced to a private screening for the cast and crew along with their relatives, with the press being asked to attend another screening.
  • Dueling Dubs: Two Latin American Spanish dubs were produced for the film. One was recorded at Palmera Record in Argentina for Sony's release of the film in Latin America, and the other was recorded at New Art Dub in Mexico for the Weinstein Company's North American release.
  • Fake Australian:
    • American Quentin Tarantino as an Australian miner, whose accent is...well, it varies. Any time he says "black" it does sound vaguely South African, but lines like "You got something to say, mate, you say it," sound somewhat more authentic.
    • American Michael Parks plays another Australian miner, but his accent isn’t the slightest bit convincing.
  • Fake Nationality: Dr. King Schultz is from Düsseldorf, making him Prussian. He is played by Christoph Waltz, who is Austrian.
  • Irony as She Is Cast: Jonah Hill, who is Jewish, plays a Klansman.
  • Leslie Nielsen Syndrome: Prior to this role, Don Johnson was mainly known for dramatic roles. Since the release of this movie, he has had many notable comedic roles.
  • Missing Trailer Scene: An interesting example. As per usual on a Quentin Tarantino soundtrack release, there is dialogue from the film interspersed throughout the score. In two instances, the tracks "In That Case, Django, After You," and "5,000 Dollar Niggas" are from alternate or deleted scenes.
  • Multiple Languages, Same Voice Actor:
    • Christoph Waltz reprised his role for the German dub, as he usually does with his originally English-language roles.
    • Franco Nero dubbed himself for the Italian-language release.
  • On-Set Injury: During one scene in a dining room, Leonardo DiCaprio, playing Candie, gives a passionate speech, punctuated by slamming his hand on the table. However, one take had a shot glass under that hand, which shattered on impact, causing several glass shards to puncture his palm. Still in character, DiCaprio ignored the pain and blood, and continued his rant to the end of the take. His costars were horrified and amazed by DiCaprio's commitment to "the show must go on".
  • The Other Darrin: Pascal N'Zonzi dubbed Stephen in European French instead of Samuel L. Jackson's usual voice (including previous Tarantino films), Thierry Desroses.
  • Playing Against Type:
  • Throw It In!: Leonardo DiCaprio accidentally cut his hand in the scene where Candie slams his fist on the table and smashes a glass, but continued with the scene. He can be seen picking broken glass from his increasingly bloody hand for the duration of the shot. The detail was incorporated into the rest of the scene, with Candie smearing (fake; this was done in a different take) blood onto Broomhilda's face. Candie wears a bandage afterwards up until his death scene.
  • What Could Have Been:
    • Kevin Costner, Kurt Russell, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Sacha Baron Cohen were originally cast before pulling out for various reasons. Russell even shot some scenes, but left due to Creative Differences (Tarantino was reworking the script during filming and cut much of Russell's character out).
    • Tarantino had originally wanted Will Smith to play Django. The two of them discussed it a lot, but according to Tarantino, the script "wasn’t 100 percent right" at the time, and after agreeing to wait, he started testing other actors and decided that Jamie Foxx was perfect. Specifically, Smith has said he wanted the movie to focus more on Django, as he didn't feel the character was the true lead in the existing script. Denzel Washington was considered, but deemed too old for the part. Cuba Gooding Jr. lobbied for the role, but was turned down. Michael K. Williams turned down the role due to his commitment to Boardwalk Empire. Idris Elba, Tyrese Gibson, Terrence Howard, and Chris Tucker were also considered.
    • There was talk of splitting the film into two parts, like Kill Bill, but Tarantino eventually rejected the idea and cut a whole lot of the planned film. Among what was cut out includes an entire backstory for Zoë Bell's character, which explains that she wears a bandanna over her face to hide a gruesome injury. Tarantino has stated interest in releasing an extended cut to restore some scenes that were left on the cutting room floor.
    • Originally, the Candyland trackers had a much larger part to play, but much was cut from them to make Django into a single film. Bell's tracker, for example, was originally going to have an entire fight scene devoted to her, in which it would have been revealed that she's missing the bottom half of her face.
    • Lady Gaga was considered for Lara Lee Candie-Fitzwilly.
    • Sid Haig was a strong contender for the role of Mr. Stonesipher, so much so that casting director Victoria Thomas informed Haig's agent, "It's a lock". Tarantino scheduled, and later cancelled at the last minute, two auditions for Haig. Two months later, the role quietly went to David Steen instead.
    • In the final draft of the script, Stephen was written to be a more brutal character; in the barn scene after Django is captured at Candie's mansion, he was supposed to torture Django by burning off his nipples with a hot poker. The dialogue from this scene, spoken by Samuel L. Jackson, can be heard on the film's music soundtrack.
    • In the finished draft of the script, Billy Crash was written to be much more brutal and sadistic. A scene of him raping and tormenting Broomhilda in his cabin was cut from the final film. His original death was also much different. Instead of shooting Crash to death at the end, Django took a large knife and threw it at his chest as he left his cabin after his assault on Broomhilda.
  • Word of God: Quentin Tarantino revealed at Comic-Con that Django and Broomhilda are meant to be the great-great-great-grandparents of the character John Shaft. An overt reference to this connection can be found in Washington's character's full name: Broomhilda Von Shaft.
  • Written-In Infirmity:
    • During the first 40 minutes of the movie, with the exception of a single scene at Big Daddy's plantation, Schultz drives a wagon rather than riding a horse. This was because Christoph Waltz had injured his pelvis in a fall from a horse during shooting. Analysis of the script shows that there was only a small amount of dialogue that ever had to be rewritten due to the cart.
    • Then, there is Leonardo DiCaprio accidentally cutting his hand on broken glass during a take. It was thrown in, so he wears a bandage through the rest of his screentime.

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