Wednesday, April 6, 2011

A Couple of New Westerns Worth Mentioning...

Wyatt Earp is riding to a movie theater near you once again! Yes, that’s right…it’s been fifteen plus years since we’ve had an Earp movie (two of ‘em actually: Tombstone and Wyatt Earp). However, I am happy to report the famed lawman will once again be entertaining us. I don’t have many details now, but here’s what I know:

An independent film entitled The First Ride of Wyatt Earp is currently in production. Interestingly enough, Val Kilmer is most likely playing an aged Earp, recounting his first ride as part of a posse tracking the murderer of Dora Hand (the posse included Bat Masterson and several other well known figures. The true story is chronicled in the excellent book Thunder Over the Prairie.)

Warner Brothers (who brought us 1994’s Wyatt Earp) is developing an old fashioned sounding tale called Wild Guns. This movie will chronicle an event that did not actually happen (in fact it has no historical basis) but sounds very entertaining. In the picture, Earp and Holliday reunite to rescue the kidnapped daughter of Sitting Bull. Doesn’t that sound like something right out of those old 40s westerns that threw in the names of real figures but placed them in completely trumped up settings? I’m fine with that, for the sole purpose of entertainment.

I will bring more as I learn it. Things might be looking up for western fans, and fans of the West’s most famed lawman.

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