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Sep 21, 2024 · Though it may seem exaggerated, the events of Tombstone’s gunfight at the OK Corral were actually based on a real shootout that happened in the early days of Wyatt’s life in Tombstone, Arizona.
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By Zaki Hasan
Posted: Dec 25, 2023 3:00 pm
Tombstone was in trouble.
That may seem difficult to believe 30 years after its release on December 25, 1993 –– long after being acknowledged as a modern classic of the Western genre –– but in the summer of 1993, a third of the way through an arduous three-month shoot, the only thing on the horizon appeared to be desolation and strife.
Director Kevin Jarre had come up with the idea of a film exploring the life of legendary gunslinger Wyatt Earp and his exploits in the Arizona boomtown of Tombstone during the 1880s. Jarre was given the job of directing his script and assembled an ensemble for the ages to fill out the cast. However, the logistics of helming a production of this scope proved too much for the first-timer, leading to his dismissal one month into shooting.
Usually, that would be right about where the story of Tombstone ends: A would-be epic overtaken by studio politics, quickly coming and going from theaters and out of the public consciousness. But for Tombstone, remarkably, that's precisely where its legend began. The film would overcome stacked odds and creative turmoil to eventually find acknowledgment as one of the greatest Westerns of all time.
The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral lasted for roughly 30 seconds but retains a primal, prominent place in American history for many reasons, not least for all the lingering questions about who started it and whether things should have happened the way they did. As such, it’s proved irresistible for filmmakers to revisit and interpret practically since the inception of the celluloid medium.
Kevin Jarre was no different. A longtime history buff who had written the screenplay for Glory four years earlier, Tombstone was a dream project for the writer. He'd initially approached Kevin Costner –– riding high in the industry after his Dances With Wolves/Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves/JFK box office trifecta –– to occupy the lead role, but the in-demand actor turned it down in favor of his own Earp opus (more on that later).
Nonetheless, where Costner demurred, plenty of others were won over by Jarre's epic approach to the subject. More than just depicting a historical event, the writer wanted to peel back the myth of Earp and show the man underneath the legend. That promise was tantalizing enough to get Kurt Russell onboard (the actor was already a fan of Wyatt, having named his son after the lawman in 1986).
The story of Wyatt Earp and the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral had been the subject of several screen adaptations in the decades since Earp's 1929 death, but there was a renewed interest in Westerns of late, with Dances With Wolves winning Best Picture in 1990 followed by Clint Eastwood's introspective, elegiac Unforgiven winning Best Picture of '92. The time was right for a new Wyatt Earp with a modern sensibility. Maybe even two.
Once Costner made noises about his own Wyatt Earp movie, studios began to beg off lest they draw the Oscar winner's ire.
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Val Kilmer was a familiar if mercurial onscreen presence by this point. He'd made strong marks throughout the '80s in such wildly diverse offerings as Top Secret!, Top Gun, and Willow. He garnered acclaim for portraying Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone's 1991 biopic The Doors, but still needed to find a truly signature role. Luckily for him (and us), it had just arrived.
The rest of the cast quickly fell into place. Sam Elliott and Bill Paxton signed on as Wyatt's brothers Virgil and Morgan (the other two Earp brothers, James and Warren, were left out of this telling). Michael Biehn, Powers Boothe, and Stephen Lang joined the cast as primary antagonists Johnny Ringo, Curly Bill Brocius, and Ike Clanton, with Dana Delany playing Earp's love interest, Josephine Marcus.
With up-and-comers like Jason Priestley, Billy Zane, and Thomas Haden Church credited alongside genuine screen legends Charlton Heston and Robert Mitchum (who served as narrator), Tombstone remains a fascinating time capsule.
Production began in May of 1993, but it soon ran aground as Jarre became overwhelmed with the project's sheer scale.
The director was determined to render every shot with exacting precision, eschewing close-ups for master shots in the vein of John Ford, and requiring take after take as he gave actors precise line readings to match what he saw in his head when he wrote it. But as this stretched on, the available shooting days dwindled even as the pages needing to be filmed didn’t. More importantly, with Costner and Kasdan’s Wyatt Earp slotted into a June 1994 release by Warner Bros., the only thing Tombstone had working in its favor was a six-month headstart that they couldn't allow to slip.
With the cast, crew, and money people growing more and more concerned at the slow pace and increasing on-set frustration, the intractable Jarre was finally removed by executive producer and Cinergi honcho Andrew Vajna from a film he'd nurtured from conception. It was an embarrassing exit that might have been the final, ignominious tombstone for Tombstone.
Tombstone depicts a specific moment in Wyatt Earp’s life. His journey to Tombstone, AZ, along with his brothers, their rivalry with the outlaw gang known as The Cowboys, the famous gunfight and its aftermath, including Earp’s “vendetta ride” after the death of his brother. This was always the focus of the project, but the version that hit theaters differed vastly from what the cast had initially signed on for.
Although he retained a solo writing credit, Jarre’s expansive, introspective character drama (Russell has referred to it as a “Western Godfather”) was replaced by something leaner and more propulsive. The character beats are there, but it's apparent many of the cast members (Elliott and Paxton, Biehn and Booth) had their roles trimmed in favor of a more narrow focus on the Wyatt-Doc partnership.
Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp
Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday
Sam Elliott as Virgil Earp
Bill Paxton as Morgan Earp
Powers Boothe as "Curly Bill" Brocius
Michael Biehn as Johnny Ringo
Tombstone shouldn't have worked. The fact that it succeeded not only at the time but with the passage of time by winning over critics is a remarkable testament to the strength of Kevin Jarre's initial vision, the strong cast he pulled together, and the desire of all involved to put their best foot forward even after the loss of the original director. While the Western resurgence of the early ’90s eventually faded away, Tombstone's warm glow has not only persisted but thrived.
Russell is the last one standing who had a definitive say in how Tombstone became the movie we know, and he ain’t talking.
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As a depiction of actual events, it’s a mixture of fact, fancy, and outright fabrication (the moving scene near the end as Wyatt bids Doc farewell never happened, for just one example), so let us not treat it as a historical document. Nonetheless, it evokes the Earp story with far more complexity than most Westerns from the genre's heyday. Also, as comparisons go, with its focus on a specific period of Earp's life as opposed to trying to encompass the totality of his life, Tombstone outshines the Costner vehicle, which is likely forever cursed to be known as "The Other Wyatt Earp Movie."
- Zaki Hasan
- Philip Sledge
- Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russell) Kurt Russell's Wyatt Earp isn't just front and center throughout the events of Tombstone, he's often the most interesting character on the screen not named Doc Holliday.
- Doc Holliday (Val Kilmer) Doc Holiday, who is played masterfully in Tombstone by an in-his-prime Val Kilmer, is often considered the best character in the whole movie, and those people who think that wouldn't be wrong.
- Virgil Earp (Sam Elliott) Virgil Earp, played here by Sam Elliott and his legendary mustache, is the oldest and wisest of the Earp brothers and appoints himself the marshal of Tombstone, a decision that brings more trouble to the small town.
- Morgan Earp (Bill Paxton) Not to be outdone by older brothers, Morgan Earp, portrayed by the late, great Bill Paxton, is right there in thick of it throughout much of Tombstone, including the famous shootout at the O.K.
- Val Kilmer Says Kurt Russell Is Responsible For Tombstone's Success. It has long been reported that Kurt Russell is not merely the star of Tombstone but also its secret director.
- Willem Dafoe Was Initially Sought To Play Doc Holliday. It's hard to imagine anyone other than Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday in Tombstone. He gives arguably the performance of his career in the Western; there are still folks claiming he was robbed of his Oscar.
- Kurt Russell Cut Some Of His Own Scenes To Earn The Trust Of His Fellow Actors. During the early days of shooting Tombstone, screenwriter Kevin Jarre (Glory) was also on-board as the director.
- Billy Bob Thornton Completely Ad-Libbed His Scene. While Kevin Jarre was very particular about his screenplay, as we noted, Kurt Russell and the remaining team involved with Tombstone made some big changes throughout the rest of production.
Aug 23, 2024 · Tombstone may not have been a box office hit, but it has become a Western classic praised for its sleek style and stellar performances. The new Netflix docuseries Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy War provides a deep dive into the real history behind the film Tombstone.
Sep 22, 2024 · There are plenty of brutal deaths in Kurt Russell’s Tombstone, and sometimes it can be difficult to keep up with which character is which.
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Aug 20, 2023 · Tombstone was released in December 1993. Six months later, Kevin Costner’s Wyatt Earp was released as well, but the biopic Western never gained the traction or fan following of its old-fashioned ensemble-style competitor.
