When Sci-fi meets Western

Here at TCM we like to think we’ve got our finger on the movie pulse so it was no surprise to us that the hottest news this week concerns horror movie specialist and Spider-man supremo, Sam Raimi, and his foray into the world of Westerns.  At the same time, we also note that Daniel Craig has swapped his sharp secret service suit for full cowboy garb as he gets set for some time-travelling Western action with an added theme of alien invasion.

The collision of these two genres is no new thing.  Back in the early 70s, Michael Crichton played with subjects of android cowboys – who can forget Yul Brynner’s robotic sharpshooter malfunction?  But, it is great to see the some new projects on the horizon keeping the much-loved Western genre alive.

One of the most original and inventive directors currently working in Hollywood, Sam (Spider-Man) Raimi, is set to direct the film version of Radical Publishing’s graphic story entitled, Earp: Saints for Sinners. The film, like the story, is based on the well-known characters who are steeped in Wild West mythology Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and their famous shoot out at the OK Corral.  These heroes of yesteryear are catapulted to a dystopian future to impose their traditional kind of justice on a new type of gold rush in the guise of a morally corrupt Las Vegas. 

Raimi comes to the DreamWorks project with both a Western (The Quick and The Dead starring Gene Hackman, Sharon Stone and Leonardo Di Caprio) and a comic book adaptation (Spider Man) under his belt, and with the project in its earliest days it’ll be fascinating to hear more as the casting gets under way. 

And if that’s not enough 21st century-style Western action for you, then look out for Cowboys and Aliens slated for release next year which is directed by Jon (Iron Man) Favreau and stars Harrison Ford, Sam Rockwell and Daniel Craig as a time-travelling gunslinger.  It’s another DreamWorks production and has the backing of both Stephen Spielberg and Ron Howard as producers.

Set in Arizona 1873, a stranger with no memory played by Craig wanders into town.  But the inhabitants are suspicious of the ‘man with no name’ and don’t like the weird high-tech equipment strapped to his wrist.  But when they start being attacked from the skies they soon decide that it might just be time to welcome back the stranger whom they rashly rejected.
 

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