According to Kanye West, Django unleashed was an idea he personally presented to the director and lead actor of the hit film. Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, Django unleashed was released in theaters with great success in 2012. In the film, Jamie Foxx plays a former slave on a mission to rescue his wife from a plantation owner.
In a new interview with Piers Morgan for: Piers Morgan uncensoredWest says he was the one who came up with the idea for Django unleashed. In 2005, West and Foxx collaborated on the music video for the song ‘Gold Digger’, and it is said that the concept came from here. According to West, he pitched a similar story to Foxx and Tarantino to use for the “Gold Digger” video, which led to the couple taking the idea for the movie.
“Tarantino could write a movie about slavery where – actually him and Jamie, they got the idea from me because the idea for Django, I pitched to Jamie Foxx and Quentin Tarantino as a video for ‘Gold Digger’. And then Tarantino turned it into a movie.”
Was Django Unchained Kanye’s idea?
The music video for “Gold Digger” features Foxx, but is ultimately very different from Django unleashed. As for the truth of the story, Tarantino has not publicly addressed West’s claims at this time, but he has never credited the mogul for contributing to the film’s story in the past. In 2012, Tarantino said in a Django unleashed panel at Comic-Con that he came up with the concept himself while writing a book about Italian spaghetti western director Sergio Corbucci.
“I was writing a book about Sergio Corbucci when I came up with a way to tell the story. One of the nice things about writing about subtextual criticism… in subtextual film criticism you don’t have to be Turn right. It doesn’t have to be what the director thought. It is what you are meeting of it. You make a case. I wrote about how his movies have this evil Wild West, a terrible Wild West. It was surreal, it was a lot about fascism. So I’m writing this whole piece about this, and I’m like, ‘Not me’ For real know if Sergio was thinking while doing this. But I know I’m thinking it now. And l can do it!'”
West could claim his idea was fooled Django unleashed, but that doesn’t make him any less of a Foxx fan. Recently, West Foxx also mentioned the actor he would most like to play if a biopic about his life were made. This follows actor Danny McBride also claiming that West approached him to star in a biopic. Whoever played him, such a movie would certainly be interesting.