Hold your breath and cross your fingers. It looks increasingly as if Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained– unlike so many recent proposed films by the great man – will actually move into production quite soon.

It has emerged that Jamie Foxx is to take the lead in the tale of a freed slave who becomes a contract killer. Other actors currently in the corral include Leonardo DiCaprio, Christoph Waltz and (you saw this coming) Samuel L Jackson.

The film's title references Sergio Corbucci's cult 1966 spaghetti western Django, which starred Franco Nero. Expect blood on the sand and percussive clangs on the soundtrack.