Whither the Weird West?

Posted on August 17, 2011 by Clint

Those of you who’ve incorporated this blog into their weekly reads might recall that I believe heartily that the Weird West represents a fertile ground for all manner of fiction. Those that haven’t can probably hazard a guess that a guy writing something called Zombie Ranch would have such a belief.

As a swift recap for those just joining us, Wikipedia defines a Weird West offering as “a combination of the Western with another literary genre, usually horror, occult, or fantasy”. In the past I’ve talked up what I considered to be some high-quality examples, such as the Role-Playing Game Deadlands, or the Undead Nightmare DLC for Red Dead Redemption, or there’s the television series of “The Wild, Wild West” or the Jonah Hex comics.

But then again, there’s the movies. If you enjoyed the cinematic versions of “The Wild, Wild West” and/or “Jonah Hex”, I’m not going to sit here and argue that, no, you didn’t… that’s your prerogative. Too many people end up wasting their breath on such back-and-forths. What I will say is that I personally found them by and large to be formulaic products of Hollywood that didn’t really pay too much attention to what they were adapting beyond the surface trappings. You can argue that they weren’t exactly adapting Shakespeare… I can argue that “Shaun of the Dead” wasn’t paying tribute to Shakespeare either, but still managed to be a smart and soulful film… something that felt like a labor of love instead of a means to a paycheck.

The saddest thing for me though is that I feel the same emptiness in the “Transformers” movies, but the Transformers movies continue to break box office records while film after film attempting to tell a Weird West story fails to connect with mainstream audiences, even with big budgets and big stars backing them up. As a caveat, I have yet to go see “Cowboys and Aliens”, so I won’t speak as to its quality… but regardless it’s barely made half its budget back since it opened. It’s such a dismal performance that Disney just outright pulled the plug on its planned “Lone Ranger” movie, which was all set to have the Lone Ranger and Tonto fighting werewolves. After reading that article I’m not so sure I liked what they were planning (far as I know Weird West never really figured into the Lone Ranger mythos), but it’s a moot point now: if Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig and Olivia Wilde couldn’t get your butts in the seats, I suppose they figured Johnny Depp can’t, either.

And this after Depp and Gore Verbinski already rescued the pirate genre from the depths of obscurity and made it cool (and profitable) again. Disney isn’t banking on a second helping of lightning in the bottle. If there’s a film out there waiting to be made that can cause cowboys to be hot stuff again, much less the Weird West, “Lone Ranger” won’t be it.

I mean, I can’t honestly say there was any time period that the Weird West was ever super popular, not in the way pure Westerns were all but a dynasty for several decades, first in books, then radio, then film and TV.  We get brief flare-ups from time to time (the “True Grit” remake being the most recent), but the Western is still by and large considered Hollywood’s past, not its present or future. Throw aliens, robots, or (ahem) zombies on top of that and you’re going to have a rough time pitching it, especially since none of the films mashing them up have so far enjoyed either critical or commercial success.

Is the Weird West just too weird for the great majority of the ticket buying public to wrap their heads around? I know people will ask me at conventions what Zombie Ranch is about and I still have never quite mastered the art of rattling off a quick answer to the question, or at least a quick answer I don’t feel is leaving major elements out. Zombie Ranch is probably weird even for the Weird West, and then beyond that I see a really simple idea like “Cowboys fight Aliens” fail despite all the money and pedigree it boasted.

So I suppose it’s a niche within a niche (within a niche?), and that’s not enough for today’s filmgoing public. The good news is, despite repeated failures at the movie box office, the Weird West doesn’t show any signs of dying out as a concept, and I’d still like to think that’s because, hey, it’s a good concept with a lot of potential still to be mined. We have our books and we have our comics and video games, and every so often someone tries a TV show or film, and sooner or later I have faith that lightning will suffuse that bottle on the big screen like a prairie thunderstorm. “Pirates of the Caribbean”, after all, only came after decades of failures at reviving the genre (“Cutthroat Island”, anyone?).

For the moment, though, I’m happy with the niche.

8 thoughts on “Whither the Weird West?”

  1. Clint

    Interesting discussion on the specific failure of Cowboys & Aliens here, by the way, if anyone’s curious.

    http://www.grantland.com/blog/hollywood-prospectus/post/_/id/31772/bomb-shelter-why-did-cowboys-aliens-fail

  2. Andrew

    So here’s my theory. If it sounds like I’m looking at this through a political lens, well, you’ve known me for 30 years. Which is to say “of course I am.” Weird West is a combination of two competing concepts. The west has a more nostalgic appeal, particular to those who like to look back to “simpler” times, even if the simplicity is illusory. To paint with a very broad brush (and ignore prairie populism), the western genre is a conservative one. Self-reliance, guns, small government, defined social roles, etc. When you add in the weird, which I read as sci-fi or horror (primarily), you get something much more speculative. The weird questions reality, embraces theory, explores taboos, and tends to challenge the social order. Again, to paint with a broad brush, the weird is a very liberal genre. You’ve done a good job of highlighting lots of westerns that explore gray morality, a big element of sci-fi, but isn’t the popular concept of the western “black hats” and “white hats”. So the challenge facing the studio execs is creating a movie that will draw in the circle that is made up of sci-fi/horror fans and the one that is made up of western fans, rather than the intersection of the two.

  3. Clint

    I think you’ve also hit on a good point with “black hats” and “white hats”. It’s the simplified morality of a Summer popcorn movie, and without exception the big Weird West films have been marketed (and written) as Summer popcorn movies. Such things tend not to have room for the kind of tug o’ war a good Western (or Weird Western) invokes in places and characters, a la “Unforgiven” or “The Searchers”. From what I’m reading, Cowboys & Aliens may have tried, but the nuances got lost in all the rewrites and it ended up being tonally jarring as a result. People going to a Summer popcorn movie have certain expectations that maybe the genre isn’t a good fit for.

  4. Andrew

    I haven’t seen it, but the title Cowboys and Aliens doesn’t instill the expectation of nuance or gray morality. If I’m going to watch that movie, I’m going in thinking of something like Independence Day with 1880’s technology. I’m seeing the Aliens as a stand in for the hoards of “savage” Indians mindlessly attacking the “innocent” settlers. I would expect no more realism in the morality than I would in the technology. If they did try for that kind or realism, they’re going to disappoint a lot of people who aren’t looking for that.

  5. SteelRaven

    Don’t know, people tend to treat sub genres harshly in the theaters (zombies included) why you don’t see many Cyber Punk films or Steam Punk at all (unless you count Wild Wild West)

    Haven’t seen Aliens vs Cowboys my self but thats only because I’m tired of my theaters prices hikes. I don’t expect anything more from Cowboys and Aliens other than cowboys vs aliens, I don’t expect the the movie to cover any of the historical morally grey issues of the west while Aliens are invading the country side.

    Don’t know, maybe people are only crazy about 3D right know (shouldn’t we moving along to holograms or something by now)

  6. Clint

    Maybe another part of it is that the Western as a movie genre had already all but faded away by the time the era of the Summer Blockbuster began in the mid-to-late ’70s. So I don’t know that we’ve ever actually *seen* what a successful Summer Blockbuster Western should look like, much less a Weird Western.

    And I think you’re absolutely right that all people generally ask of a Summer Blockbuster is big screen thrills and rousing entertainment, not deep thoughts. I’m not sure that any of the Weird West movies have deep thoughts, but in the case of Jonah Hex it sure tried, but the thoughts didn’t end up being very deep and the “popcorn” level suffered because of it.

  7. Clint

    It’s also very fair to point out Steampunk hasn’t really connected with mass audiences either. Again leaving aside any questions of quality, “LXG” and “The Golden Compass” were still box office proof of that.

  8. flameape

    Weird Western is not dead, man! My co-writer, Bill Woodcock and I are on the saddle making our weird western webcomic, HOLLIDAY:Mountain Madness!

    One year after John Holliday is planted in the frozen earth, who is this wounded gunman seeking refuge in a remote mountain home? What shadowy figure bides it’s time nearby while the very earth and air about it recoils in horror? A semi hallucinatory and brain twisting plunge into the world of the historic gunfighter, John Henry “Doc” Holliday- returned from the dead!

    http://hollidaycomic.com/

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