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Attack of the Westerns!
Attack of the Westerns!
The Western was once the pinnacle of popcorn entertainment. With guns, bad guys, damsels in distress, shootouts, bank robberies, chases and more, they had everything that makes a modern blockbuster successful (and were made with a lot less money). Then, sometime after Clint Eastwood left the American frontier for urban justice as Dirty Harry, the Wild West got kind of stale. Sure, there have been some honorable mentions over the last twenty five years: Pale Rider, Unforgiven (both Eastwood films, naturally), Young Guns, Tombstone, Maverick - but compared to the number of Westerns produced during Hollywood's Golden Age, the genre is just a shadow of what it was, until now.
Will Jonah Hex revive the Hollywood Western?
With Jonah Hex on the horizon and Cowboys and Aliens saddling up for a Summer 2011 release, it has become evident that Tinsel Town has a renewed interest in the Western and is turning to the genius of comic book storytelling for ideas on how to make it relevant again - and why not? Movie studios have become increasingly dependent on comic book stories and characters over the last decade anyway, so it makes perfect sense that they'd look to the medium to influence other types of films as well.
Further, Westerns and comic books are practically a match made in heaven as they have many similar characteristics. Warner Bros. Hex is a great example of this connection. The story follows a common comic book formula: Man is wronged by vicious villain, saved by supernatural forces and reborn to protect and avenge the innocent. Sound familiar (Dan Ketch, Eric Draven anybody)? Probably does, and that's what makes the character so perfect for a film. He's got all the fantastical, high-concept elements of the superhero stories that moviegoers gobble up summer after summer, but doesn't have to wear tights. He's a bad-ass and we love our bad-asses, which brings me to my next point.
Mark Steven Johnson threw a nod to the Western influence into Ghost Rider
(that was one of the only things that I liked about the movie)
The days of idealism are dead. The most successful recent action films focus on cynical anti-heroes like Wolverine, Batman and (the new) James Bond. Hex fits the bill, as did many Western protagonists of the 1960's and 1970's, which helps make the current revival of the genre all the more logical. I guarantee that if you resurrected Eastwood's Blondie from The Good, The Bad and the Ugly today, audiences would get cheer for him the way they do for The Dark Knight or 007, because he was one of the superheroes of his time.
So what does this all mean? Well, if Jonah Hex and Cowboys and Aliens strike gold at the box-office, expect to see a lot more six-shooters on the big screen. There are a wealth of Western characters and stories in the comic book world, so these two films are just the beginning of a Hollywood trend revisited. I'll leave you with a few of my favorite Western in current pop-culture that i believe are ripe for film/TV production:
Loveless: If you are an avid comic book reader, chances are you worship Brian Azzarello. The prolific writer's short lived series about a former confederate soldier and prisoner of the North turned sheriff of his hometown of Blackwater is a wonderfully layered tale that explores the personal tragedies and redemption of protagonist Wes Cutter while also addressing larger historical and thematic issues such as racism and tensions between the North and South after the conclusion of the Civil War. Though it's three-year run was brief, there's enough material within the series to create an adult oriented, Deadwood-styled drama for cable TV.
Iron West: One of my absolute favorites, Iron West tells the tale of Preston Struck, an incompetent outlaw with a heart of fool's gold who discovers an army of metal men bent on destroying central California. With the help of a magical old shaman and his sidekick Sasquatch, Preston must thwart the tin men before they re-fashion a railroad train into a giant demonic iron monster. Cinematic possibilities abound.
Bonus - Red Dead Redemption: Yeah, I know it's not a comic book, but if you've gotten lost in Rockstar Games' epic open-world environment, then you know that John Marston deserves to ride into the sunset on the silver screen. The game pulls no punches and is as rousing and dangerous an adventure as one would want to see in Hollywood Western. Bring it on!
Comment
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Comment by A String of Obscenities on June 9, 2010 at 8:12am -
I LOVE LOVELESS, really was an amazing comic even with the unsatisfying ending. Jonah Hex on the other hand has never really pulled me in and I have always considered mediocre at best.
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Comment by Costa_K on June 8, 2010 at 2:34pm -
I always confuse LOVELESS with Matt Fraction's LAST OF THE INDEPENDENTS for some reason.
I was genuinely excited about JONAH HEX until they gave it the same plot as WILD WILD WEST and then changed the really fundamental aspect of the origin.
I'm assuming the change is because contrary to what you're saying, REAL Westerns (like the majority of JONAH HEX stories) don't do that well. Spaghetti Westerns did so well because they were cheap as shit to make so they could churn them out so easily. Modern straight-up historical Westerns are so rare film-wise, at least ones that do well. I really can't remember the last time that a Western film like "Unforgiven" has hit filmgoing audiences. The closest thing would probably be "Deadwood", but that's TV.
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Comment by Daniel Hubschman on June 8, 2010 at 12:22pm -
@aharshDM - I didn't say that "Hollywood is the genius of comic book storytelling". I said that Hollywood is TURNING TO THE GENIUS OF COMIC BOOK STORYTELLING to help make the Western relevant again. Whether or not that works, or whether or not they get the page-to-screen transfer right is another argument entirely.
And your argument describes the process that any piece of material adapted for the screen goes through. This isn't a new thing. It sounds like you've got a quarrel with the entertainment industry at large rather than just Jonah Hex.
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Comment by Shaddowkhan on June 8, 2010 at 6:34am -
RED DEAD IS THE SHIT.amazing how before it was books being made to movies finally people have aknolegde the greatness of comics.
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Comment by aharshDM on June 7, 2010 at 8:56pm -
Hollywood is not "the genius of comic book storytelling". They simply look for a property that has fans, then they apply what screenwriters call "craft" to it, which is essentially making it fit the 3 act formula with a ball-numbing action scene every ten pages or so. Hollywood shits on everything that makes a comic great. All they want is the name. This movie could easily be called "Occultish Cowboy Movie" and leave Jonah Hex out of it. Fans of the comic would complain that it's biting Hex's style, but I assert that that would be better than all the BAAAWING we're gonna do when the movie comes out. From the trailer, it looks mindless, and has Megan Fox. If it looks like bullshit, and it smells like bullshit, chances are, it's some ol' bullshit.
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Comment by Daniel Hubschman on June 7, 2010 at 3:59pm
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@Mark Hazleton Jr. - Agreed. True Grit is a sure-to-be hit
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Comment by The Dork Knight on June 7, 2010 at 3:55pm -
Josh Brolin easily fits into Westerns, between No Country for Old Men, THIS, and True Grit...he just seems like the best choice for a modern - western. More so than almost any other actor.
Personally i dont think Jonah Hex will be too memorable or special, but I AM seeing it mainly because im a huge fan of Brolin (plus Malkovich is cool, and everyone else besides Megan Fox).
Im just guessing the one-liners, and cheesiness will sorta ruin most of the movie, but im sure ill still find a matinee-price worth it.
True Grit will be the GREAT WESTERN of 2010 though.
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Comment by Daxter on June 7, 2010 at 1:11pm -
i just bought Red ded redemption and the blu-ray edition of 3:10 to yuma so enough westerns for me this week
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Comment by Daniel Hubschman on June 7, 2010 at 8:49am
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@Daniel Martin: I believe it's *article* - that is all
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Comment by Russell on June 7, 2010 at 7:02am
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good article, but disagree with the notion that Jonah Hex could even revitalize an interest in the old west. This shit looks like wild west part 2 and FUCK AKIVA GOLDSMAN who is the shittest producer of all time.
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