![]() ![]() Rounding out the acting mix are veteran western actor Buck Taylor, and, in the key supporting role of the sheriff’s loyal deputy, Brendan Wayne - grandson of The Duke himself. Filmed mostly on location in New Mexico - including at the famed Bonanza Creek Ranch near Santa Fe - Cowboys & Aliens is the work of a handpicked production team that includes veteran stunt coordinator Terry Leonard and costume designer Mary Zophres (who dressed Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, and others in last year’s True Grit remake). It’s a world that Favreau has taken great pains to make look and sound vividly real. And into the middle of that world, we drop aliens - and then have people react the way people in that world would have reacted.” “What we’ve done,” says coscreenwriter Alex Kurtzman ( Star Trek, Mission: Impossible III), “is to essentially set up this very serious, very stark, very dangerous world with all the conventions that apply to a traditional western. Dolarhyde, other townspeople, and several Apache warriors from the surrounding area when marauding extraterrestrials drop in for a hunting party. Which, of course, places him in the right place at the right time to join forces with the sheriff, Col. Photography: Zade Rosenthal/Universal Studios and Dreamworks II Distribution Co. But then someone identifies him as a notorious outlaw, and he winds up inside the local jail. At first, the only clue to his history is a mysterious shackle that encircles his wrist. One day, a stranger (Craig) with no memory of his past wanders into Absolution. Woodrow Dolarhyde (Ford), a grizzled tyrant who rules with a whim of iron, and whose spoiled son (Paul Dano of There Will Be Blood) is repeatedly at loggerheads with the local sheriff (Carradine). The desert town of Absolution is controlled by Col. So by taking these two genres and putting them together, it allowed us to make a very traditional western with this sci-fi element to it.”īased on the 2006 graphic novel created by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, Cowboys & Aliens - set to open July 29 in theaters and drive-ins everywhere - spins a fanciful tale set in the New Mexico Territory of 1875. “Because even though, up until recently, the western has been viewed as box office poison by Hollywood, the alien invasion movie has been seen as a very lucrative international genre. “The alien side of it is what really made it possible,” the director claims. Oddly enough, it was the outer space aspect that revived interest. ![]() And our stories somehow become bigger and more timeless when set in the mythic West.” Trouble is, back when Cowboys & Aliens originally was green lighted for production - that is, before Rango, True Grit, and the video game Red Dead Redemption recently launched what Favreau hopes is a western revival - the genre was viewed as, if not dead, then pretty dang dormant. ![]() “I think most directors, deep down, have the desire to make a western,” Favreau says. Indeed, Favreau believes that even with the help of Hollywood heavy hitters Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard, who serve as producers on Cowboys & Aliens, he still would have had a hard time getting his latest project off the ground if Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, Sam Rockwell, Keith Carradine, Adam Beach, and other notables in his cast weren’t sharing screen time with . well, aliens. But he notes, “We were sorely disappointed when we found out that, at the time, there was no market - especially in foreign territories, in international sales - for a western.” “I’ve always been a fan of westerns,” Favreau insists, pointing out that after he scored a surprise success as costar, screenwriter, and coproducer of Swingers, his 1996 breakout indie comedy, he and collaborator Vince Vaughn cowrote a dead-serious Wild West drama called The Marshal of Revelation. No matter what you might have thought when you first heard the title Cowboys & Aliens, no matter what you may have dreaded when you started considering the outlandish possibilities of a sci-fi western mash-up, director Jon Favreau ( Iron Man) wants to set you straight: He’s playing for keeps while aiming to please with “a very traditional western” that just happens to include some extraterrestrials. Despite the extraterrestrials, if director Jon Favreau has his way, this may be the next classic western. ![]()
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