Helgeland Pens Tarantino-Inspired “Django-Zorro” Film

Oscar winner Brian Helgeland (“LA Confidential,” “Mystic River”) has been set to pen the script for “Django/Zorro” at Sony Pictures.

The project is dubbed a film continuation of a 2014 seven-issue crossover comic co-written by Quentin Tarantino and Matt Wagner. The comic is seen as essentially the closest thing Tarantino did to a sequel.

The comic follows slave-turned-bounty hunter Django, the character Jamie Foxx played in Tarantino’s 2012 film “Django Unchained”. He develops a kinship with Don Diego de la Vega, the character Anthony Hopkins played in 1998’s “The Mask of Zorro”.

The film, which is in early development with Helgeland scripting, follows on from the comic series. Tarantino will not direct, but has reportedly given his blessing to move forward.

When the comic came out, there was talk of a potential film adaptation, but it never eventuated, and there were lingering rights issues that seem to have been sorted out.

The title will join “The Adventures of Cliff Booth” as another Tarantino work getting a kind of sequel, though in that film’s case, Tarantino did pen the script.

Source: Deadline