Antonio Banderas laments not getting to play Zorro in a Quentin Tarantino take on the legendary hero.
Antonio Banderas has been chatting a little about the tantalising prospect of getting to play an ageing version of Zorro, the heroic masked swordsman who he memorably portrayed in a brace of films between 1998 and 2005. Matt Wagner originally wrote a comic in which the character crossed paths with Django, the vengeance-seeking gunslinger that Quentin Tarantino resurrected for the screen in 2012’s Django Unchained.
Whilst you could fill a movie slate with unproduced Quentin Tarantino projects, the comic book captured the filmmaker’s imagination and as such, a screenplay was written by Jerrod Carmichael. Go back to 2019 and the project was gearing up, with the script completed and Tarantino personally requesting that Banderas reprise the role.
Banderas has been chatting about the process, expressing his disappointment that the project never came to fruition and recalling the moment when Tarantino approached him with the idea.
“He talked to me, I think on the Oscar night (in 2020) when I was nominated for Pain And Glory. We saw each other at one of those parties. He just came up to me and I was like, ‘in your hands? Yeah, man!’ Because Quentin just has that nature to do those type of movies and give them quality.”
Banderas would add that working with Django star Jamie Foxx was also a draw for him, saying that “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. 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. It would be fantastic and funny and crazy.”
The project never quite came together and Tarantino has reflected that his time in the hat and cape have probably passed, adding “I don’t know. If I do Zorro again, I would actually be the character played by Anthony Hopkins in the first one. I’m gonna turn 62 this summer, so I don’t know if I can play that character in the same way I used to.”
There will be another incarnation of Zorro arriving on Disney+ at some point, with That 70s Show's Wilmer Valderrama in the title role. As for the dream team of Zorro and Django in a Tarantino flick? That one will have to be added to the pile of perfect movie ideas that we’ll most likely never get to see.
USA Today
—
Thank you for visiting! If you’d like to support our attempts to make a non-clickbaity movie website:
Follow Film Stories on Twitter here, and on Facebook here.
Buy our Film Stories and Film Stories Junior print magazines here.
Become a Patron here.
