Will Smith has emerged as the frontrunner to star in Quentin Tarantino’s next film, Django Unchained, a spaghetti Western about a slave in the Old South who teams with a German bounty hunter to search for his wife. Tarantino stalwarts Samuel L. Jackson and Christoph Waltz also are circling key parts. It’s Tarantino’s follow-up to his worldwide blockbuster Inglourious Basterds. Tarantino would like Smith to star in the film, but no official offer has been made to Smith, and any deal would of course be subject to working out financials, which might be difficult given Smith’s status as one of Hollywood’s few sure-thing stars. Indeed, though Smith has been out of multiplexes since 2008’s Seven Pounds, he is still considered among the top two or three box-office draws worldwide.