It's the little film that could and it almost wasn't a thing, thanks to Gawker Media.

After an early draft of the script was published - in full - by Gawker, Quentin Tarantino quickly lashed out and said that the film would never be made and, of course, here we are -  all it took was a law-suit and some calming noises.

Kurt Russell plays John 'The Hangman' Ruth, a ruthless bounty hunter with an impressive face mane who's on his way to bring murderer Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to justice when he's waylaid in a cabin in the middle of a snow-storm. Whilst there, he's confronted with a former Union soldier-turned-bounty hunter (Samuel L. Jackson), an unhinged gunslinger who's appointed himself Sheriff (Walt Goggins, Jr.), a decrepit Confederate general (Bruce Dern), a cow-puncher (Michael Madsen, no idea what that is), the executioner who's set to hang Daisy (Tim Roth) and the caretaker who's looking after the cabin (Demian Birchir).

That's a lot of brackets, in fairness.

Tarantino's cited old-school Western TV shows like The Virginian, The High Chapparal and Bonanza (ask your Mam or Dad about any of those) rather than a specific genre of Western, which is pretty interesting. Channing Tatum is also due to turn up in a small, blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo and, no doubt, there'll be a few other cameos along the way as well.

The Hateful Eight lands in Irish cinemas on January 8th.