“django”
Series update of the western legend starts
Matthias Schoenaerts is the new Django.
© Cattleya Srl/Sky Studios
Here comes the next very free adaptation of the Italo-Western icon: In the Sky series “Django” the title hero is looking for his daughter.
A western icon goes into series production for the first time. The Italian-French co-production “Django” starts on February 17th on Sky. It is loosely based on the 1966 film of the same name. The spaghetti western first introduced the taciturn gunslinger, who developed a life of his own in the decades that followed.
“Django” will start on February 17, 2023 on Sky’s streaming service Wow and on demand on Sky Q. A new double episode can be seen there every Friday. From February 21, “Django” will also be broadcast linearly on Sky Atlantic. New episodes are shown in a double pack every Tuesday at 8:15 p.m. The total of ten episodes of 60 minutes each are available in the original English language or in German, with either German or English subtitles. “Django” is also available in UHD quality.
“Django”: That’s what the series is about
Texas, late 19th century. Cowboy Django lost his family in a massacre eight years ago. He is firmly convinced that only his daughter survived. After a long search he thinks he has found a clue. It leads to the city of New Babylon, where outcasts live together peacefully.
There he actually finds his daughter Sarah. But she doesn’t want anything to do with him. She blames him for wiping out her family. Django tries to get a second chance with her. He also helps John Ellis, the founder of New Babylon, against the attacks of his adversary Elizabeth Thurmann.
The story is loosely based on the 1966 spaghetti western, in which Django pitted Mexicans against Southerners in a village on the US-Mexico border.
“Django”: The cast of the series update
Matthias Schoenaerts (45) is the youngest in a series of countless actors who follow in the footsteps of the original Django Franco Nero (81). The Belgian became internationally known with “The Taste of Rust and Bone” alongside Marion Cotillard (47). Since then, one of what is probably the biggest film star in his country has also starred in a number of English-language films, for example alongside Carey Mulligan (37) in “Am Grüne Rand der Welt” and in “Red Sparrow” with Jennifer Lawrence (32).
With Lisa Vicari (26), a German actress is also part of the pan-European cast. She plays Django’s daughter Sarah. Vicari previously played a leading role in “Dark”, the first German in-house production on Netflix. Briton Nicholas Pinnock (49) embodies John Ellison, the founder of New Babylon. He is best known in Germany as the main actor in the Sky crime series “For Life”.
The Django makers were able to win over a European heavyweight for the role of Elizabeth Thurman. Noomi Rapace (43) plays the adversary of the title hero. The Swede became a star through her portrayal of the hacker Lisbeth Salander in the “Millennium” trilogy.
Who is Django?
As a taciturn outlaw who lugs his guns in a coffin, Sergio Corbucci’s (1926-1990) film made Django the biggest icon of the spaghetti western alongside Clint Eastwood’s (92) nameless anti-hero from Sergio Leone’s “Dollar” trilogy.
Since copyright was lax in Italy in the 1960s, a number of free rider films were released immediately. It either featured a character named Django or named him in the title—regardless of whether a hero of that name even appeared. In Germany, the word “Django” was put in the titles of a number of films that had anything to do with guns and horses. Only in 1987 was an official sequel starring Franco Nero released, aptly titled Return of Django.
In 2012, Quentin Tarantino (59) bowed to the character – even if his protagonist in “Django Unchained” only has the name in common with the original. Django is here for the first time an Afro-American, an escaped slave played by Jamie Foxx (55).