Quentin Tarantino's 'The Hateful Eight' Boycotted By Police; Director Called Officers 'Murderers?'

During a Los Angeles press conference Saturday, director Quentin Tarantino spoke about the police union boycott of his latest movie "The Hateful Eight," according to People.

Police organizations announced their plans to boycott all of Tarantino's work, as well as the movie. The officers heard reports say that the director called them "murderers" during a New York City rally in October, which Tarantino vehemently denied.

"I do not feel like the police force is this sinister black hand organization that goes out and plucks up individual citizens in a conspiracy kind of way," said Tarantino on Saturday. "Having said that, civil servants shouldn't be issuing threats, even rhetorically to private citizens."

Quentin Tarantino has openly campaigned against police brutality and said he is not worried about the boycott. Some of the police unions included in the boycott are The Assn. of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs, the Los Angeles Police Protective League and New York's Patrolmen's Benevolent Association.

Tarantino insisted that he was not condemning all police at the rally, but meant to talk about recent cases of unarmed civilians being killed by police.

“They might think I’m an out-of-touch celebrity who doesn’t know what the f--k he’s talking about, but I’m not coming from a place of hatred,” the director told The Wrap. “And I think I am dealing with a reality that’s on the ground, and a reality that I would hope that they would agree with. That this stuff is sickening and it needs to stop."

Approximately 800 people filled the 1,000-seat Samuel Goldwyn Theater Sunday evening, for approximately a three-hour version of the movie, which includes the Ennio Morricone overture and 12-minute intermission, reported the Los Angeles Times.

Cast members Kurt Russell, Samuel L. Jackson and Jennifer Jason Leigh were greeted with a loud ovation and participated in a post-screening question and answer.

"It felt like an event," said a producer after the movie, "the kind of thing where you have to see it in a theater, not streaming at home or on your phone. I think that's going to carry some weight with people, the idea that you have to give yourself over to this experience for three hours."

Another academy member called the experience an "endurance test" because for her, it was "too violent" and "too indulgent."

Quentin Tarantino's Western film "The Hateful Eight" hits theaters on Christmas day.