According to Tarantino, no final decisions have yet been made about casting. But in the past a wide range of names from Tim Roth to Sylvester Stallone have been rumored to be involved.

The film has been described as a remake of the classic 1967 Second World War action movie "The Dirty Dozen," which is about a group of American soldiers convicted of various military crimes who were ordered to go on a suicide mission behind enemy lines to kill Nazi officers.

But Tarantino points out that the original picture was only a source of inspiration, nothing more. "What actually got me to sit down and put pen to paper was 'hey wouldn't it be fun to do a Dirty Dozen kind of thing?' It doesn't look anything like The Dirty Dozen," he explained to BBC News.

"I don't want it to feel like a period film. I want it to feel current," Tarantino continued. "I want it to feel right now. One of the things I have to battle against is 30 years of Nazi-occupation TV movies where we've all seen the big streets and the vintage cars and the Swastikas, and we've just seen that ad nauseum. This is a modern, in-your-face movie. This is not a TV movie period piece."

During the Cannes Film Festival, Tarantino promised to return next year with a finished copy of "Inglorious Bastards." Stay tuned.

We recently reported that the upcoming Quentin Tarantino-directed WWII film "Inglourious Basterds" (yup, that's the correct spelling) has already started principal photography. Well, today we have the first shot of Brad Pitt as Lieutenant Aldo Raine who assembles a team of eight Jewish-American soldiers to take on the Nazis.

"Inglourious Basterds" begins in German-occupied France, where Shosanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent) witnesses the execution of her family at the hand of Nazi Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). Shosanna narrowly escapes and flees to Paris, where she forges a new identity as the owner and operator of a cinema.

Elsewhere in Europe, Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Pitt) organizes a group of Jewish soldiers to engage in targeted acts of retribution. Known to their enemy as "The Basterds," Raine's squad joins German actress and undercover agent Bridget Von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) on a mission to take down the leaders of The Third Reich. Fates converge under a cinema marquee, where Shosanna is poised to carry out a revenge plan of her own.

Harvey Weinstein spoke to GQ magazine about Quentin Tarantino's WWII film "Inglourious Basterds" and about the rumor that Tarantino was asked to cut 40 minutes out of it.

"Those stories are all untrue," he explained. "What he's doing is just reorganizing some scenes. I mean, the guy had six weeks to cut his movie [for Cannes]; most guys take six months. Most guys take a year."

Weinstein continued: "There's sh*t on that cutting-room floor that'll blow your brains out. I was telling Quentin the opposite ? "You should put that sh*t back in the movie." There's scenes with Brad Pitt and the Basterds, and I'm praying he puts that sh*t back in, 'cause it's un-f*cking-believably great. Listen ? this movie will be between 2 hours and 20 minutes and 2 hours and 27 minutes."

Weinstein also spoke about a potential prequel to "Basterds." "Brad wants to do Inglorious II. We all want to do it," he said. "And the movie hasn't even come out yet! But unfortunately I cannot give away the plot."