Chapter Two: Gathering Basterds Ain’t Easy

Tarantino’s take on the Bastards would have to wait for years, since the young filmmaker didn’t get a handle on what he wanted the film to be for years and even if he had, he wouldn’t have been able to raise the budget to make it.

Instead, he focused on building his rep and making the other movies that had been rolling around in his cine-obsessed noggin – Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown – and appearing in/producing friends’ pics.

But then, in 2000, after largely dropping off the filmmaking radar (though he cropped up in documentaries, cameos and as the 'presenter' of some films), it was reported that he was hard at work on a war film that would star, of all people, Adam Sandler.

Described as a gung-ho pic in the style of The Dirty Dozen, Tarantino enthused about it to The Daily Mail: "I've got a bunch of guys fighting the Nazis, and there's a part for Adam Sandler, and I hope he'll be crazy enough to do it."

Sandler, at the time, wasn’t exactly known for his dramatic work – he’d yet to star in Punch Drunk Love, so the idea raised plenty of eyebrows.

The film had originally been conceived as a Western, but had now evolved into a blend of Spaghetti Western and World War II.

The problem, though, was getting it finished…