Jamie Foxx has emerged as the frontrunner for the title role in Quentin Tarantino's spaghetti Western "Django Unchained."

The Oscar-winning "Ray" star has been in the mix for weeks, but talks have now progressed to a point that Foxx is the sole actor in the running to take on the part of the vengeful slave who teams up with a German bounty hunter to scour the Old South looking for his wife.

Will Smith and Idris Elba ("The Wire") had also been in consideration for the role. Smith passed and Elba is now doing Guillermo del Toro's "Pacific Rim."

Sources caution that no offer has been made and that talks are in a delicate stage since Foxx has concerns about taking on the risky role.

Leonardo DiCaprio, "Pulp Fiction" veteran Samuel L. Jackson andChristoph Waltz, who won an Oscar for Tarantino's last film, "Inglourious Basterds," have been circling other major roles. If they come together, Waltz would play the cocky dentist-turned-bounty hunter who trains Django to fight, Jackson would play a villainous house slave, and DiCaprio would step into the corrupt boots of plantation owner Calvin Candie, who wins Django's wife in a poker game.

Foxx, whose recent headlining turns in films such as "Law Abiding Citizen," "The Soloist" and "The Kingdom" have underwhelmed at the box office, returns to theaters on July 8 with the comedy "Horrible Bosses."