Cyriaque Lamar, of io9.com, wrote a rant around the time Jonah Hex came out about why Hollywood sucks at making Weird Westerns. I agree in many ways, although I DO tend to like the spectacle of the Giant walking steam powered Spiders Hollywood seems to fall back on. If the story had been stronger I'm not sure it would have been as much of an issue. I've always felt that the Will Smith Wild Wild West was like a Big Brass Knob, gorgeous and shiny on the outside, but utterly hollow on the inside. That seems to be the only reason Hollywood even makes Weird Westerns, so they can be big tent pole summer movies. No one is interesting in doing a High Plains Drifter anymore.
At one time Werewolves in the Lone Ranger movie would have sounded COOL! However, Ive been burned with cliched writing and lazy filming so often now that I feel like I know how that whole thing would have played out. I just wish, if they were going to spend the time to do it, that Hollywood would make their Weird Westerns have a good story and not rest the whole of the film on the visuals; clearly they don't respect the genre. They are making the Weird Western look really bad.
Lansdale wrote a script for a Dead in the West movie that I wish they'd dig up and make, or hell, have him adapt Two Gun Mojo and make an excellent Jonah Hex movie, the character deserves it!
Anyway, You can read the Article HERE and Id love to hear your thoughts on it. We should get a bit of a dialogue going about this, because I'd love to know where everyone stands on this issue.
1 comment:
Hollywood is interested in making special effects movies because they do well in the US and Asian markets. Good weird westerns are character studies and tend to not lend themselves to special effects. At least that's my take. Jonah Hex, for example, was filmed to look like a comic book, whereas most of the comics are written to look like westerns.
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