Will we see western films in cinimas and t.v. like they did in the 50s?
Sure. It’s a fashion thing. It comes and goes. Some time – may it be soon! – there’ll be a blockbuster western, and that will start a brief trend.
Meanwhile, we have El Dorado and Silverado!
I been watching ‘Have Gun will travel ’ on line , I love western shows and movies. But Johnny Depp movie ’ The Long Ranger’ was a flop, and that might keep this from happening .
They make the movies but they usually don’t get much notice. Butch Cassidy, Silverado and the True Grit remake did well, and in between were a number of decent movies. On TV there was Deadwood not long ago. It’s just not a major genre as it once was so it it’s not as attractive to the producers as it once was. And then on top of that there are thousands of hours of television and film to watch. There a cable channel for westerns, and several of the old series are run on the retro channel.
There are two big Westerns coming out this winter. The Revenant, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Domnhall Gleason and Will Poulter; and Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, starring Channing Tatum, Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, and Tim Roth.
It’s all cyclical. The consensus will be that the Western or the Private Eye or whatever genre is dead. Then one show tries it, it becomes a hit, and suddenly everyone wants to copy it.
Django Unchained (2012) and the remake of 3:10 to Yuma (2007) both did well.
Part of it is the “real” west is really beginning to fade whereas back when many of the classical westerns were made, people were not far removed from those times and indeed, some artifacts were still common. Like they could talk to family members who were pioneers who really did ride horses and wagons. Cattle and ranching culture was common and real and not a tourist attraction.
Thread relocated to Cafe Society.
DJANGO, sure – but YUMA grossed only $70 million on a $55 million budget: a return on investment that’s almost, but not quite, as good as the awful FANTASTIC FOUR.
Firefly / Serenity was a Western in space
(emphasis mine)
Sure you didn’t accidentally walk into the X-rated parody version? :dubious::o
In addition to the other examples, Hell on Wheels is still on. You could also argue that Justified was a Western (“Neo-Western”).
Here are a couple Wikipedia lists of movies:
Sou’westers are an interesting headgear, if only because it’s difficult to say where they were invented in the 18th/19th century; the rugged coast of Maine ? The Great Cod Banks ? Cornwall ? Australia ? Norroway ? however I do not think they will ever become fashionable again amongst the theatre-going crowd.
Bone Tomahawk, also with Kurt Russell, is coming out this month.
The True Grit remake did $250 million, and was critically acclaimed (I see TriPolar mentioned it already).
Avatar sequels are coming soon.
That’s not entirely untrue; however, I don’t remember a western where cattle and ranching plays more than a peripheral role, and of course the Cowboy of the movies is almost entirely a myth. And the landscapes that the westerns were set in is still there. About the only thing I can think of that has some truth to it that was featured prominently in Westerns, but is no longer or is just for tourists, is the old western frontier/boomtown (even though there are also differences, for instance, more gun control than typically shown in the Western.)
I doubt the Western will ever be back in its full glory. There will be occasional productions, but only one or two a year, if that. There are too many issues to overcome.
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Logistics. Sure the landscapes are still there, but there are contrails in the air. You’d have to build entire towns as sets. These weren’t issues in the past, when you could shoot on the backlot and reuse things for film after film, but audiences wouldn’t go for that. Ultimately, a western would be a CGI film, without the type of thing that people want to see in CGI films (people flying around and doing superhuman feats).
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Hollywood is built on remakes. But there aren’t a lot of westerns that might have any sort of draw. Gunsmoke is possible, but the show didn’t have the sort of action moviegoers demand.
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Consider most classic westerns: There really isn’t a lot of action in them. Stagecoach has an Indian attack (which, of course, is problematic these days) and a gunfight at the end, but most of it is just people talking. Fort Apache has an Indian attack at the end, but most of it shows everyday regimental life. Various dramatization of the gunfight at the OK Corral only spend a few minutes of the film showing the actual gunfight.
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Western gunfights would seem dull for an audience used to watching superheros destroying cities as they fought.
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Good westerns are basically character dramas. There’s no reason to set a character drama in the west, since you can do the same thing in current times.
As noted, there are FOUR high-profile westerns coming out in the next two months. If anything, people are going to be asking what’s up with all the westerns coming out right now.
Bone Tomahawk (10/23) (Kurt Russell)
The Revenant (12/25) (DiCaprio, Inarritu)
The Hateful Eight (12/25) (Tarantino)
Jane Got a Gun (12/31) (Natalie Portman, Ewan McGregor)