With Will Smith unwilling to take on the project, Quentin Tarantino has chosen Jamie Foxx to play the title character in his spaghetti Western, DJANGO UNCHAINED, reports Deadline.com. Foxx joins the cast that includes Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson. He plays a freed slave who teams up with a German bounty hunter and sets out to free his wife from the clutches of an evil plantation owner.

Stacey Sher, Pilar Savone and Reginald Hudlin are the producers alongside exec producers Harvey Weinstein, Michael Shamberg and Jim Skotchdopole.

The Weinstein Company will release the film in the U.S. on Dec. 25, 2012. Sony Pictures is handling international distribution.

Production will start in November.