Amph Django: New "Western" Reimagined Series Starring Nicholas Pinnock and Noomi Rapace

I've only recently come across this as I follow Noomi Rapace in my Google feeds. It's kind of an interesting take from the original film in 1966; while it's still set in the Wild West of the 1860s and 1870s, it's a completely European television project that features an all European cast and filmed on location in Romania. I'm not sure if it'll be available how or when it would be available to watch in North America.

Django Series

 

I'm not sure being "completely European" is as tremendously different from the original Django as you seem to think it is.

 

I didn't realize until I just looked it up that the original film was shot in Italy and Spain. I just figured most if not all of those Spaghetti Westerns of the 1960s were shot in the Southern States.

 

Interestingly it's usually the opposite: most were shot in Italy and Spain, as that was the cheaper budget option at the time for European productions. Post-Cold War the cheaper locations have shifted eastward, which would probably explain the choice of Romania. Well, okay, the budget and the nice deserts.

 

Cheaper to shoot overseas though? Once in a blue moon I take a vacation to Kanab, Utah; mainly because there's a large animal sanctuary that I'm fond of. Within that small town there's a barn that's been converted to a movie theater, and they show old time Westerns shot on location within miles of the area. Of course back in the 1960s Western films were just about as common as today's blockbuster superhero or Disney/Pixar films; maybe even moreso.

 

Well, keep in mind we're talking about spaghetti westerns, which are overwhelmingly Italian productions (some might argue exclusively), so it's not overseas to film in Italy and Spain in that case.

Edit: On the subject of the remake, I do think the the decision to focus on, quote, "a reappraisal of masculinity in the Western and a 'contemporary and psychological' take on the genre" is kind of amusing since my favorite western, Se sei vivo spara, arguably does that, and it was renamed Django Kill! as a marketing stunt.

 

Spaghetti Western is a term because they were done by Italians largely in Italy (as Ramza notes, primarily in Italy and Spain).

 

Interesting, but I’ll pass. If Naomi was playing Django I’d check it out.

The original remains one of my favorite spaghetti westerns because of the gothic horror leanings in it’s nod to Jean ‘Django’ Reinhardt, Django killing many stylized KKK with the gaitling gun in hidden in the coffin he drags behind him and Franco Nero. The theme song is a kicker too.

@Ramza , have you seen Guilo Questi’s giallo follow up to If You Live, Shoot? If not, Death Laid An Egg is quirky fun.

 

Oh man, no I have not. I'll track that one down.

 

Gina Lollobrigida is great in ...Egg. I think you’ll enjoy it.

 

And of course the Tarantino film was shot in all sorts of locations throughout the States.

 

Despite dozens of films with the name Django in the title, the only official sequel was made in Columbia. It looks nothing like the original and it does star Franco Nero.

 

That was...disappointing.

Anyway, I hope the show does well.

 

Ciorbă western, surely?

 

Oh it’s terrible. I wonder if this show will be as violent as the original.

 

I know this thread is just about two and a half years in the making, but Netflix in the States finally aired the series for the first time this month. The first episode starts off kind of confusing, Django is this wandering man who stumbles into a town made up of newly freed slaves and white people within a Texas crater. He's looking for someone that he knew long ago; having followed clues to track her down. Meanwhile in a distant town, a woman (played by Noomi Rapace) leads an assault on a local bar/nightclub; in what makes it seem to be some sort of demented religious fanaticism. There's 10 episodes in the series, and each are about 50 minutes. Normally I'd give something like this a pass, but I like Noomi Rapace and figured I'd see how it goes.

 

Tbh I don't know (and kind of doubt) that the premise of the new series has anything to do with the original film. I know right away it has zero to do with the Tarantino film.

 

Looks like Sky nabbed this one in the UK.