Three major UK cinema chains, Cineworld, Picturehouse and Curzon cinemas won’t be showing Quentin Tarantino’s highly anticipate new film The Hateful Eight, when it is released on January 8th. The decision is due to a ‘last-minute’ dispute with the film’s distributor which has prevented it coming to the three chains.

the hateful eightThe Hateful Eight is not coming to three major UK cinema chains.

After the film was noticeably absent from Cineworld’s list of upcoming films, some customers tweeted the chain’s official twitter account, who replied saying they’d ‘been unable to come to an agreement with the film's distributor.’

In a further statement to Digital Spy Cineworld said: “We can confirm that The Hateful Eight will not be shown at our cinemas. Unfortunately we were not able to reach an agreement with the movie’s distributor. We make every effort to show a wide variety of movies and we’re very excited about other releases in January including Joy and The Danish Girl.”

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Curzon cinema also tweeted about the film’s absence from their listings saying: “We love a Quentin Tarantino movie but it is with great regret that we will not be showing The Hateful Eight from Friday 8 January. On this occasion, the distributor has chosen to screen the film only in 70mm in the West End and in selected venues nationwide.”

In an official statement, the film’s UK distributor Entertainment said: 'Cineworld had made us aware that they were very unhappy that The Hateful Eight had been booked into the Odeon Leicester Square for an exclusive 70mm Ultra Panavision presentation, and specifically that they would therefore not be able to play the film at their Picturehouse Central venue.’

‘Due to the special facilities required for the unique 70mm Ultra Panavision presentation we needed the largest theatre and screen possible in the West End and the Odeon Leicester Square was the natural choice.’

‘The technical elements and costs involved with this special presentation meant that this would need to be the exclusive West End venue. The Odeon Leicester Square seats 1680 and Picturehouse Central only seats 344 so clearly this was not a viable alternative.’

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They went on to say that ‘Cineworld had every opportunity to book the film in their other cinemas across the country on the same basis as other exhibitors and declined to do so.’ Adding that they ‘will be booking more sites with other exhibitors to compensate for Cineworld’s lack of support for a film that has already been given 5 stars and declared as Quentin Tarantino’s masterpiece by The Guardian.’

The film will also not be shown in Ireland by Irish cinema chain IMC, who wrote on Facebook: “Once again Entertainment Film (@EFDFilms on Twitter) will not supply IMC Cinemas with their latest film - Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight - be sure to let them know how much this disappoints you if you wanted to see it!!” This is reportedly part of a long dispute between the two companies.’