I’ve got several small bits of Django Unchained news to share, and figured that it would be easier for everyone to include them all in one large update. Here we go:

• Django Unchained’s production designer, J. Michael Riva, recently passed away. He suffered a stroke shortly before heading over to the Django Unchained set. My condolences to his family. You can read a nice obituary about his life here.
• Will Smith claims that the reason why he turned down the role of Django is because “I was in the middle of ‘Men In Black 3′ and [Tarantino] was ready to go, and I just couldn’t sit with him and get through the issues, so I didn’t want to hold him up.” My interpretation: “Quentin would never let me rewrite the script or give me a producer credit, so I wasn’t interested.”
• Jamie Foxx called Django Unchained “a love story” in an interview with the print version of Empire Magazine. indieWIRE included some choice quotes from the interview here.
• Kerry Washington briefly talked about Django Unchained in a video interview with Entertainment Weekly.
• The Guardian wrote an interesting article about how Quentin Tarantino and Johnny Depp are reinventing the Western genre with their upcoming films. Johnny Depp will be starring in next year’s The Lone Ranger.
• Franco Nero recently talked about working with Quentin Tarantino in an interview with Italian website Bestmovie. You can read an English translation here–it’s an amusing read. (Big thanks to Richie Ladner for pointing me to this).

I also want to take a moment to comment on the future of this blog. The reason why it took me longer than usual to post the Django Unchained International Trailer and this update is because I’m in the middle of planning a major move and looking for a new residence. Anyone who has experienced either knows how time-consuming and stressful it can be at times. While I’m committed to posting updates about Django Unchained ASAP, sometimes this part of my life has to take precedence. So I apologize in advance if news is a little slow here over the next few weeks.

I also want to thank all of my readers for their support. I appreciate your emails and your news tips very much!