I'm going to start calling the film Inglorious Basterds, because that's what's written on the script (which I still have links to here on Filmstalker) and I imagine that Quentin Tarantino or any of the companies and studios involved will really have the guts to call it Inglorious Bastards on release, think of the uproar.

Anyway, there's casting news for Inglorious Basterds today, and it includes two big names, one of which is absolutely no surprise to Tarantino films at all.

Samuel L. Jackson is teaming up with Quentin Tarantino once again and the word is that he'll be playing the...narrator!

If the rumour from Playlist is to be believed then he called Tarantino and asked if he could be involved, because Tarantino hadn't been asking him for casting calls. So he's now the narrator who appears only a few times during the film to explain events and the passing of time – something that obviously can't be done with story narrative. Mmmm.

Anyway, after that shoe-horning in of an old character from an old relationship, there comes some actual real casting news, Maggie Cheung is joining the cast as the French matron of the cinema that shelters the main protagonist from the Nazis.

Yes, I was as confused as Playlist when I read that. Cheung can speak fluent French, so there's no problem with her taking up the role and pulling it off...apart from her not being a native French woman.

Inglorious Basterds really is beginning to sound like a really eclectic mix of actors in this film, and I'm really wondering how it's all going to turn out. With names from Eli Roth to Maggie Cheung and Brad Pitt to Christian Berkel, there's a breadth of experience and multinational talent in there. Is this going to be an over complicated mess, or Tarantino's finest moment?