{"id":9590,"date":"2015-12-21T09:39:50","date_gmt":"2015-12-21T16:39:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=9590"},"modified":"2015-12-21T09:39:50","modified_gmt":"2015-12-21T16:39:50","slug":"thermopolis-bison-coats-featured-in-new-tarantino-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2015\/12\/thermopolis-bison-coats-featured-in-new-tarantino-movie\/","title":{"rendered":"Thermopolis bison coats featured in new Tarantino movie"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Coat\"<\/a>

Courtesy photo<\/p>

Actor Kurt Russell appears in the upcoming film “The Hateful Eight” wearing a bison hide coat created by Merlin Heinze of Thermopolis, Wyo.<\/p><\/div>\n

THERMOPOLIS, WYO. \u2014 The holiday season is a key sales period for retailers across the country, but Christmas Day marks a major milestone for one Wyoming small business. That\u2019s when \u201cThe Hateful Eight<\/a>\u201d hits movie screens, offering audiences an extended look at a custom bison coat created by Thermopolis native Merlin Heinze.<\/p>\n

Actor Kurt Russell will be wearing the enormous winter jacket in the Quentin Tarantino western set in Wyoming during the 1870s. The story follows a bounty hunter played by Russell, who must wait out a blizzard along with seven other nefarious characters packed together in a cramped stagecoach stop.<\/p>\n

Together with wife, Barb, Merlin operates Merlin\u2019s Hide Out, a Thermopolis tannery and retailer specializing in luxury fur garments and accessories made from a bison and other animal hides.<\/p>\n

In September 2014, they were contacted by costume designer Courtney Hoffman<\/a>, who was looking for hides to use for coats in \u201cThe Hateful Eight.\u201d Because of his previous work producing similar coats, the production ended up hiring Merlin to make Russell\u2019s coat\u2014or actually, eight versions of the same garment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt takes two hides to make one coat, and the challenge was to find enough matching hides to make all eight,\u201d Barb said.<\/p>\n

That can be tough, because both hides must closely match in color, size and other attributes. The Heinzes ended up looking through more than 250 hides to find the necessary 16 matching buffalo hides.<\/p>\n

Hoffman, who was not available for comment, patterned Russell\u2019s coat after one in the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>In a story<\/a> published earlier this month on the website for the Costume Designers Guild, Hoffman explained that Tarantino needed eight versions of Russell\u2019s coat\u2014and 12 versions of other costumes\u2014because the director is famous for staging epic scenes of blood-soaked violence<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had been a costumer on [Tarantino’s] \u2018Django Unchained.\u2019 I knew what to expect on the set. I knew how blood-hungry he gets,\u201d she told Valli Herman.<\/p>\n

Designed to accentuate Russell\u2019s ominous screen presence, the huge coat was heavy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was so heavy that it hurt Kurt\u2019s back at times,\u201d she said. \u201cHe\u2019s as manly as they get, so if it hurt him, you can imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such heavy buffalo coats were prized for their warmth, something that today\u2019s synthetic fibers can\u2019t match, Barb said.<\/p>\n

Merlin started tanning hides in a spare bedroom in 1997, when he decided to use a couple of beaver hides to make a new pair of gators for himself, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs it often happens, \u2018a couple\u2019 of beaver hides turned into \u2018many.\u2019 The following winter, when a good friend asked him to tan a buffalo hide, I put my foot down and said, \u2018Not in the spare bedroom,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

That launched Merlin\u2019s Hide Out<\/a>, which has since become a recognized leader in producing top-quality buffalo hides, which the company ships to all 50 states and nine countries. Coats like the one Russell wears in The Hateful Eight retail at Merlin\u2019s Hide Out for nearly $3,000<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t count on picking one up in time for Christmas. The company has a month-long waiting list for custom orders.<\/p>\n

The Heinzes have seen the Hateful Eight trailer, and are \u201cextremely excited to see it when it comes out,\u201d Barb said.<\/p>\n

The film, which has received generally positive early reviews, opens in limited release in 70mm wide-format theaters on Christmas Day, and on screens nationwide on Dec. 31.<\/p>\n

\n

Contact Ruffin Prevost at 307-213-9818 or ruffin@yellowstonegate.com. Reprinted with permission from YellowstoneGate.com<\/a>,\u00a0an\u00a0independent, online news service about Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks and their gateway communities.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THERMOPOLIS, WYO. \u2014 The holiday season is a key sales period for retailers across the country, but Christmas Day marks a major milestone for one Wyoming small business. That\u2019s when \u201cThe Hateful Eight\u201d hits movie screens, offering audiences an extended look at a custom bison coat created by Thermopolis native Merlin Heinze.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":9591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[3547,3544,3545,1083,3546],"class_list":["post-9590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diversions","tag-courtney-hoffman","tag-kurt-russell","tag-merlin-and-barb-heinze","tag-quentin-tarantino","tag-thermopolis","prominence-category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}