A meta theory has suggested that Quentin Tarantino’s film Django Unchained is actually a film within a film. 

According to Reddit, it’s likely that the 2012 western film, starring Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz, is actually a film made and released in Tarantino’s most recent film, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.

If this were true, it would mean that Django Unchained’s Calvin Candie is not played by Leonardo DiCaprio, but rather the actor’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood character Rick Dalton. This would imply that Django Unchained is one of many roles Dalton stars in, including Lancer, Operazione Dyn-o-mite!, and The Fourteen Fists of McCluskey.

“We have no clue as of today what happened to Dalton after Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Tarantino said that after 1969 he was a pretty big name,” the theory reads. 

Another theory suggests that The Fourteen Fists of McCluskey, a film within OUATIH – which shows Dalton playing a character who kills Nazis with a flamethrower – is actually a film inspired by Tarantino’s 2009 film Inglourious Basterds.

Tarantino is set to direct a Once Upon A Time In Hollywood spin-off based on Bounty Law, the fictitious TV show that stars DiCaprio’s character in the film. In 2019, meanwhile, he hinted that he was writing yet another book, which would revolve around a World War II veteran and his struggle to reconnect with Hollywood movies.

Watch Calvin Candie in action below.