Tombstone

Released in 1993, Tombstone was the result of a long, chaotic journey. Originally, the film was supposed to star Kevin Costner as Wyatt Earp and to be directed by Kevin Jarre. The two disagreed about the focus of the film -- Costner thought the film should center entirely on his character -- and eventually they parted ways. Costner went to his Silverado director, Lawrence Kasdan, and developed the appropriately titled Wyatt Earp.

Jarre cast Kurt Russell as his Earp and tried to get Willem Dafoe as Doc Holiday. Even though this was nearly five years after it came out, Dafoe was still stigmatized for his role in The Last Temptation of Christ and so the film wouldn't have been able to find distribution if he was in it. Ironically, Val Kilmer, far and away the best part of the film, was a second-choice consolation prize.

Jarre envisioned a sprawling Western epic and his screenplay for the film would have clocked in at close to three hours. Once the production was two weeks behind early on, the studio jumped at the chance to fire Jarre and hire George P. Cosmatos. Prior to Tombstone, Cosmatos was most known in America for directing Sylvester Stallone in both Rambo II and one of the low points of 80's action films, Cobra.

After Cosmatos died, Kurt Russell claimed that he actually directed the film using nightly meetings and a private sign language during the day to guide the shooting. I'm not sure what to think about that. Russell doesn't have a reputation of being unusually crazy or grandiose so I'm not sure how to interpret this claim of his.

Either way, the film came out around Christmas 1993 and did pretty good business, 56 million domestic gross, and, as I mentioned earlier, did well on video. Though it is a popcorn Western, noted for its entertainment value more than being an "important" movie, a lot of people (myself included) thought Val Kilmer deserved an Oscar nomination for his performance as the tubercular Doc Holiday.

Six months later, Costner's Wyatt Earp came out and performed poorly at the box office, earning only 25 million on a 63 million dollar budget. It did earn nominations - five Golden Raspberry Awards for, among other things, Worst Picture, Worst Actor, and Worst Couple. Costner won for Worst Actor and the film won for Worst Remake or Sequel.

On a personal note, I'd pay good money to be able to grow a Wyatt Earp mustache like the one Kurt Russell sports in this movie.