By 
Of all the so-called “Neo-Westerns” produced in the modern era—which is to say Oaters made after the ’70s—few have enjoyed as much longevity as Tombstone. Released sheepishly in 1993 by a studio so preemptively embarrassed about behind-the-scenes troubles that Disney elected to not screen it for critics, Tombstone was expected to come and go. Instead it never left.
Bill Clinton famously screened Tombstone multiple times in the White House’s East Wing throughout his presidency; publications like Paste and IndieWire list it among the greatest Westerns ever made to this day; and star Val Kilmer titled his autobiography after one of the many quotable lines his Doc Holliday utters in the picture: “I’m your Huckleberry.” It’s a remarkable legacy, which in some ways still astonishes the people who made it, including Stephen Lang.
We caught up with the respected character actor earlier this month ahead of his latest turn in Sisu: Road to Revenge. We also got to talking about his time as Ike Clanton, the cowardly bully and rustler who found himself squaring off against Holliday (Val Kilmer) and Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russell) at the O.K. Corral. Thirty-two years after the cinematic fact, Lang is visibly proud of Tombstone’s legacy, even if it remains an experience marred by what it might have been.
“I knew that the original script was as good a script, and better, than any I’ve ever read,” Lang recalls. “It was essentially The Godfather in 1880 Arizona, it seemed to me. It was so good. There were so many strands going on. And then as we made the film, there were difficulties, certainly, at the beginning. Things straightened out, but I just never knew that we were gonna make something—I didn’t know that we could achieve what the script achieved, okay? And in fact, we didn’t.”
Lang is alluding to the fact that when Tombstone was rushed into production in order to beat Lawrence Kasdan and Kevin Costner’s Wyatt Earp to theaters, it originally had the screenwriter Kevin Jarre attached to direct. A bit of an unsung hero in late 20th century Hollywood, Jarre had previously seen incredible success by penning the WGA-nominated script for Glory (1989). He also had just seen his dream project—an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula—die an ignoble death after Francis Ford Coppola’s own iteration beat Jarre to production.
So getting the chance to helm his other passion project—a grand epic about the simmering animosities and rivalries that erupted between the Earp family and various criminal factions in the Arizona territory in the 1880s—was an opportunity Jarre leapt at. What remains ambiguous is exactly why Jarre’s would-be directorial debut fell apart, but what is clear is that after a month of production (and the film falling significantly behind schedule), producer Andrew Vanja fired Jarre. In the aftermath, Rambo: First Blood Part II director George P. Cosmatos stepped in, and the film went under significant rewrites in Russell’s trailer. In fact, there remains disputed accounts as to whether Russell ghost directed Tombstone (a theory Russell notoriously has remained silent about over the years).
“What we made was a very good film,” Lang says. “It’s a really cool movie. I would never deride the movie and I’m delighted when people call it a classic or their favorite Western, or something like that. But we set out to do other things as well. I don’t mean to be cryptic, it’s just the way it is.”
While Lang also does not comment on the directorial authorship of the film, he does recognize what the film’s leading actors brought into turning a troubled production into a cult favorite.
Says Lang, “We were a very tight group, and I give Kurt tremendous credit for wrapping his arms around that film and refusing to let it die. He did that. Val set a certain tone, and Val and I got along like gangbusters after we got our shit straight. And I loved Val. He’s a tremendous actor, and Kurt still remains to me somebody who I not only feel tremendous friendship and kinship with, but I admire. He knows a tremendous amount about the art and craft of making movies.”
And whoever gets credit for what Tombstone became, it undeniably turned into a movie that’s stood the test of time.
The post Stephen Lang on Tombstone’s Troubled Production: Kurt Russell ‘Refused to Let It Die’ appeared first on Den of Geek.
