Catching the film "Wyatt Earp" on TV recently took me back to 1994 when two films about the same people but with very different styles battled over the life of American legend "Wyatt Earp" I will touch on the films themselves but its the behind-the-scenes stories that interest me just as much.
In 1994 screenwriter Kevin Jarre (Rambo First Blood: Part II, Glory) and actor Kevin Costner set out to make a film, "Tombstone", about Wyatt Earp. Early troubles led the pair to part ways with Jarre writing a script that revolved around the OK Corral gunfight and Costner teaming with Lawrence Kasdan to make a biopic about Earp's entire life.
Tombstone
Jarre, who would direct the film as well, approached Kurt Russell to play Earp and secured a $25 million dollar budget from Disney's minor studio Buena Vista Pictures, reportably after Costner convinced all major studios to turn the movie down. The first task was to cast Doc Holliday, the long suffering friend of Earp. Their first choice was Wilhem Dafoe but Disney vetoed the idea since Dafoe had starred in the controversial film "The Last Temptation of Christ" and so Val Kilmer was cast.
The film went to shoot in Arizona where Jarre clashed with his producers and actors when he refused to cut his script down. According to Kilmer, "virtually every main character, every cowboy, for example, had a subplot and a story told, and none of them are left in the film." Veteran actors Robert Mitchum and Glenn Ford dropped out and the production had fallen behind two weeks by the time Jarre was fired. What happened next has been the subject of some conjecture in recent years.
According to Russell, the cast and crew were fearful of being shut down and Russell stepped in to "ghost direct" the film until a replacement was hired. Italian George P. Cosmatos was hired but the story goes that Russell continued to ghost-direct by creating shot sheets for Cosmatos to use and giving him secret hand signals during filming. Russell did not speak on this until after Cosmatos died in 2005 and his claims were somewhat bolstered when Sylvestor Stallone claimed he ghost-directed "Cobra" for Cosmatos in the 1980s.
Tombstone would go on to be one of my favorite all time movies. Perhaps that is due to my young age, the subject matter or most likely because I saw it with my Dad on a "guys night" However, in my opinion the film has remained a favorite of mine because even after 15 years in, I enjoy watching it every bit as much as I did in 1994.
Next time I will discuss"Wyatt Earp" as well as talk about my comparison of the 2 films.
No comments:
Post a Comment