In the 1990s, studios often saw competing movies with similar concepts being made and released in proximity to each other. One of the examples from that era is the two Western action pics featuring Wyatt Earp: 1993’s “Tombstone” saw Kurt Russell playing the iconic lawman (naming his son Wyatt after the character), and Kevin Costner had his own version in 1994 with “Wyatt Earp.”
While “Tombstone” made okay money at the global box office with $73.2 million (said to be $25 million despite multiple creative hiccups behind the scenes) and the late Val Kilmer saw his performance as the gambling gunslinger Doc Holiday as one of his greatest roles, as boasted by fans, Russell is still lamenting the movie not having a larger impact on the zeitgeist because he feels it didn’t live up to Kevin Jarre‘s (“First Blood: Part II,” “The Devil’s Own”) script.
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“That’s because of the screenplay. The movie is not as good as the screenplay….I’ll never make peace with that. It could have been way better. It’s considered one of the great Westerns, right? It could have been considered one of the great movies. It had a great cast, but it had fabulous writing. And for a lot of different reasons, the money got burned through, and the director thing didn’t work out. So we had to go about it differently, and we got what we made. The impact of Tombstone is very strong, and that’s nice. That’s great. But could it have been a lot better? Yes,” Russell told THR during a recent interview concerning his thoughts on “Tombstone” not living up to the script’s potential.
Interestingly enough, Russell is said to have taken an oversight role on the project and had long been rumored to have partly shadow-directed the action flick (Jarre would also end up doing uncredited directing on portions of the film) when there had been creative conflicts between director George P. Cosmatos (“First Blood: Part II”) and the cast/crew/producers.
At the time, Westerns made a bit of a comeback thanks to popcorn films like the two “Young Guns” movies (led by Emilio Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland, and Lou Diamond Phillips) and Clint Eastwood‘s Oscar-winning drama “Unforgiven” from 1992 (featuring great performances from Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman), so things like “Tombstone” started to become priorities as audiences had a desire to see more of those projects.
To some, Russell’s sentiment may be a tad misguided, as many do have strong connections to “Tombstone” and look upon it as one of the great action films from that decade. Then again, while older moviegoers have fond feelings for it, we’re uncertain if younger folks have the same connection (many were being introduced to it after the passing of Kilmer), and it could be what the actor is referring to. Also, maybe not entirely feeling like they captured what the screenplay was going for, as they were simply trying to complete production on time. He would eventually return to the Western genre for Quentin Tarantino, playing a “moral” bounty hunter called The Hangman in “The Hateful Eight.”
Kurt and Wyatt reteam as Lee Shaw for the second season of “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters,” which is streaming on Apple TV, and you can read our review of Season 2 right here.
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
