Just a few facts Mam

[mrsl]

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I got curious while watching Silverado for the umpteenth time today about how popular Westerns really are, or are not. So, I looked up a few to see what the numbers say. It seems to me that around 1980 was the cut date of ending westerns and very few have been made since the 80's. I'm considering movies made in the USA although some of the films out of Australia are pretty good. I stuck to real cowboy ones, not just movies that took place in the west like Eastwoods' Coogan's Bluff.

Silverado - (1985) $ 33 M

Unforgiven - (1992) $ 101 M

3:10 to Yuma - (2007) $ 53 M

Dances with Wolves - (1990 $184 M

Appaloosa (2008) - $20 M

I did try to find the budget for the films but that is not given. My curiosity was pretty much appeased when I realized the Western is still favored by a lot of people. The problem is that nobody wants to make them. I wonder why? I'm sure the guys would love to learn how to do all that riding, roping, and barroom brawling, and the ladies would probably love to dress in those period dresses. I would even presume to state that teens (the favored audience), might also be lured to a good horse opera.

Any comments or arguments?
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[movieman1957]

It was shortly after "Unforgiven" that I guess westerns went to live on TV. As you may well recall TNT made a ratings killing with a bunch in the late 1990s. (You could add "Tombstone" to your list. I wasn't sure if those were budgets or box office figures.)

The prominent ones were those from Tom Selleck. Sam Elliott did his turn in there as well. A few others like "Riders of The Purple Sage" and "The Virginian" and the quirky "Purgatory" also were pretty successful. And there were plenty of McMurtry variations on "Lonesome Dove" that seemed to have some popularity.

I'm not sure anyone knows how to make them anymore for a movie audience. What was the last big one "The Assassination of Jesse James..." and that was a box office failure of sorts. I guess its long running time didn't help. I guess the powers that be don't think the public wants them. I know they are making "The Lone Ranger" or whatever they are calling it with Johnny Depp playing "Tonto." Are we looking at a serious film or something in the light hearted vein of "Pirates of The Caribbean"?

Maybe they don't think the stories are deep enough. Generally, they aren't but isn't that the beauty of them. But as we saw with the new "3:10" they couldn't do it without the explosions.

I do think any real continuation is coming from cable. There may be the occasional movies but I think they are stuck in the silly comedies or sci-fi thing for a while.

[sandykaypax]

What about the recent remake of True Grit?

I agree, the heyday of the genre seems to have passed.

Sandy K

[movieman1957]

How stupid that I would forget that one. It was pretty successful but didn't exactly set anything off. Maybe as it was another remake.

[RedRiver]

Cowboys gave way to secret agents in the Bond driven 1960's. Our friend John Wayne continued to make westerns. And along came this Eastwood kid. But those were "Wayne films" and "Eastwood films." The everyday cowboy movie was pushed farther and farther into the shadows. SILVERADO, TOMBSTONE, OPEN RANGE have made valiant efforts to keep the genre alive. I'm not sure the popularity of bygone days has ever been regained.

[Rita Hayworth]

The everyday cowboy movie was pushed farther and farther into the shadows. SILVERADO, TOMBSTONE, OPEN RANGE have made valiant efforts to keep the genre alive. I'm not sure the popularity of bygone days has ever been regained.

I wished WESTERNS have a comeback ... I would love to see more of these films; and I for one ... loves SILVERADO, TOMBSTONE, and UNFORGIVEN so much that I would like to see more of them and hopefully a new JOHN WAYNE emerges so that today's generation can sit back and enjoy these films like we did from the 40's to the mid 70's. What you've written here RedRiver hit me like a "tons of bricks" ... and I wished Hollywood comes up a plan to restore these bygone days of yesteryears.

[mrsl]

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They were box office figures movieman in answer to your query. I had forgotten about Tombstone and Open Range, but that alone shows how much of a lack there is in good westerns. You can count them on your two hands. I'm pretty sure the names of Clint Eastwood and Kevin Costner were the reasons those two movies rose above the 100 million dollar mark. The funny thing is that Silverado now is probably a favorite among most western addicts as it is for me, but when it was made, it starred a group of unknown guys who within a couple of years became household words. I wonder if it were re-released today on the big screen, more attention would be made of it. Westerns are quite popular in the 'made for TV' genre, and in most cases they turn out to be fine movies. Again, movieman, the explosions in 3:10 were inevitable I guess, in this day of CGI. I don't expect a large revamping heyday to occur, but it would be nice to be given the opportunity to see some of the marvelous stories from Gunsmoke, Lawman, Big Valley, etc. expanded and given back stories to make a full length movie. Those half hour and hour long shows gave great entertainment, but it would have been fun to see why some of those land barons fought so hard against the settling of the frontier, other than greed. Some of my favorite episodes of Gunsmoke are the ones with Burt Reynolds and although over a few weeks, we learned why he was living in town as a blacksmith, a full length movie showing his growing years with a white father and an Indian mother and eventually making friends with the marshall of Dodge City would fill up a two hour film that could be quite action oriented. I'm not suggesting a remake of old TV series episodes, but consider how great the Star Trek movie about Khan (a character gleamed from the series), gave us the monumental death of Spock, and the fact that at one time Captain Kirk had a son. All I'm saying is that writers seem to have some sort of alll-encompassing writers block and need something to spark their creative juices a little, so possibly old TV episodes might spark those ideas.
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[RedRiver]

I don't know if this made a difference, but even the recent films we've mentioned leave much to be desired. TOMBSTONE has a fine and thoughtful first half, then deteriorates into mindless slaughter. The final 45 minutes has no plot at all. OPEN RANGE features effective atmosphere; interesting if not adorable characters. But nothing about the story moves me in any way. SILVERADO, ironically, is the least impressive of the bunch. Big cast, too many characters, more story lines than I could keep up with. It's as if the filmmakers felt making a western was all they had to do. It didn't have to be a good one!

[tinker]

I think the problem with creating more westerns is a number of things.

One is practicalities about cost. In the old days they had large companies that could supply costumes, vehicles and movie trained horses that could be guaranteed not to kill your million dollar super star actors and hold up production. There were also stables full ( forgive the pun) of stunt people who could ride and deliver the action on demand, using specially trained horses. Now most of the stunt work is about driving and any horses have to be specially trained for each movie, or they go to places that are cheap to make and do not have cruelty rules in place and I can't stand watching falls using running w's or horses brutally knocked around (or even chickens for that matter) for entertainment.


The other thing that sort of killed westerns off is I think, they ran out of things to do with the violence. Westerns have always been allegorical, not real. A sort of fantasy space where film makers and writers and actors could say things that did not work in realistic settings. Westerns have a lot in common with science fiction. So Carl Foreman could make political statements in High Noon and John Wayne could refute them in Rio Bravo. Changing racial attitudes could be reflected in 50's movies and John Ford could vilify bankers in Stage coach. And I think westerns created a sort of mythology and a language that made those stories not only acceptable but understandable. I don't think it is a coincidence that some of the most adult and thought provoking westerns happened in the fifties made by people who had survived and maybe had time to reflect on World War 2 and Korea and had something to say about it.

Many of the themes of those were very much someone who did what they had to do and justified what they had to do but regretted it, or suffered from it. The Gunfighter comes to mind. Many of the heroes were flawed but they were heroes and we understood the distinctions between bad men and heroes. I don't think it is a coincidence that the western at least in the form that talks to me of mythology of heroes and legends disappeared around the time of Vietnam when heroes seem to disappear. I think the violence in the ones made at that time killed the heroic myth and basically while there were some fantastic films made at that time, we stopped liking or emphathising with the characters. And we killed the mythology.

I know some of it was done to make it realistic but westerns were never about realism. Really they were about, for me, exploring fantasy and understanding of values and ethics and morality in a form that made the exploration far enough removed to accept. Its nothing new. Homer did the same thing.

I suppose super hero movies have taken on the role, although I have many concerns about the morality and ethics they espouse.

dee