Tarantino theory suggests Leonardo DiCaprio is playing Rick Dalton in Django Unchained (old)

A new meta theory doing the rounds suggests that Quentin Tarantino film Django Unchained is actually a film within a film.

A few Reddit users have wondered whether the 2012 western film, starring Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz, is actually a film that was made and released in the same world as the director’s most recent film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

This would mean that, in the world of the film, villainous character Calvin Candie is not actually played by Leonardo DiCaprio, but the actor’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood character Rick Dalton.

The theory suggests that Django Unchained would have been another release to star Dalton alongside his other film and television projects, including Lancer, Operazione Dyn-o-mite! and The Fourteen Fists of McCluskey.

In Once Upon a time in Hollywood, Dalton is playing the villain in Lancer who actually has some similarities to Candie, so it’s no stretch to assume Dalton could have been cast in that role.

The latest theory states: “We have no clue as of today what happened to Dalton after Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Tarantino said that after 1969 he was a pretty big name.”

Another theory suggests that The Fourteen Fists of McCluskey – which shows Dalton playing a character who kills Nazis with a flamethrower – is actually a film inspired by the events seen in 2009 film Inglourious Basterds.

In 2019, it was announced that Tarantino was developing a sequel to Django Unchained.

The project will be an adaptation of a comic book miniseries he wrote that shows what the character got up to years after events seen in the 2012 film.

Tarantino also recently revealed the reason why he thinks his "most ambitious" film flopped at the box office.

Find our ranking of the director's 20 greatest characters here.

Read More

Quentin Tarantino finally reveals backstory of Pulp Fiction character

This is how many F words are spoken in every single Tarantino film

Macaulay Culkin recalls bad Once Upon a Time in Hollywood audition