Photo: WENN.com

Don Johnson has been cast by Quentin Tarantino for Django Unchained.

The actor, a star of 1980's Cop drama Miami Vice, will play Spencer Bennett, a plantation owner who oversees a group of "ponies", or attractive slave prostitues.

Deadline reports that the role is another villainous one, and that it took Tarantino a number of weeks to convince Johnson to take the part.

Johnson's career has been on a downward trajectory for some time, with most of his releases, such as When in Rome and Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star destined for bargain-bucket bins the world over, so it must be hoped that the Tarantino magic will rub off in the same way it did for John Travolta, Pam Grier and Robert Forster.

A remake of 1966 spaghetti western Django, Jamie Foxx will play a freed slave who, along with his bounty hunter partner Schultz (Christoph Waltz), embarks on a mission to rescue his unemancipated wife.

Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L Jackson, Kurt Russell, Gerald McRaney and MC Gainey will also star in Django Unchained, which goes into production in November, with the film set for a Christmas 2012 release.

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