Wild Bill (1995 film)

The script was based on several sources. One of them was the play Fathers and Sons which had been on Broadway in 1978, directed by Joseph Papp. It was written by Thomas Babe, and focused on Hickok's last days in Deadwood, placing the action in the saloon where he was killed. Babe says he entirely made up the nature of Jack McCall, whom he turned into Hickok's illegitimate son.[3] Babe's play was seen in Los Angeles in 1980 by Walter Hill, who had been considering a film on Hickok.[3] Hill optioned the play along with a screenplay about Hickok by Ned Wynn.

Meanwhile, the team of Richard and Lili Zanuck had optioned a 1986 novel about Hickok called Deadwood. They had hired the author, Pete Dexter, to write the script for the movie Rush. The Zanucks said they were interested in the project because it explored the nature of celebrity in a Western context. "Figures like Wild Bill were like rock stars," said Lili Zanuck. "They had sex appeal."[3] Dexter wrote a script based on his novel which was sent to Barry Levinson and Sydney Pollack before going to Hill.[3]

"He's a gutsy director," Zanuck said about Hill. "He's kind of a male-oriented director, and he has great knowledge of the West and all of the folklore and all of the heroes."[1]

Hill wrote a script based on the play, the novel, and Ned Wynn's screenplay. Hill says he took details of the town from the novel but the relationship between McCall and Hickok was mostly from the play. Hill took material from Dexter's novel for the atmosphere of the town and relied on Babe's play heavily for the third act, the last hours of Hickok.[3]

Hill said the script was based on "character rather than incident. Because I think it's not so much the fights, it's his personality, his sense of humor about himself. He seemed to understand his own legend. He both fueled it and was a prisoner of it, that it was his raison d'etre, and at the same time he felt himself very constrained by it."[1]

The Zanucks and Walter Hill took the script to John Calley, president of United Artists, and the film was green-lighted at the end of January 1994. Jeff Bridges and Ellen Barkin signed to star.[1]

Westerns revived in popularity in the early 90s with Dances with Wolves and Unforgiven. However, some other Westerns had been box office disappointments including Wyatt Earp and Hill's own Geronimo. Producer Richard Zanuck said, "If you make a good picture and have a compelling story to tell, it's going to work. I don't believe that any genre dies. It just has to be fed with good product."[1]

The film was shot in Los Angeles, including at Universal Studios and Warner Bros. Studios. The Gene Autry Melody Ranch in Santa Clarita, California was used to portray Deadwood.[1]

Hill said that Jeff Bridges was "an actor I greatly love... a very nice man, decent, hard working, got along well, no problems" but that there "was always a kind of tension between Jeff and myself" because "Jeff does a lot of takes, I don't. My focus is very intense, but when it gets to be you just doing it again and again I lose it and I find an awful lot of performers go stale. He would always have an idea he thought he could make something better."[4]

The film received a 46% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 28 reviews, with an average rating of 5.6/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Crowded with talent on either side of the camera, Wild Bill shoots itself in the foot with a surprisingly muddled take on the story of the titular folk hero."[5] Roger Ebert gave the film two stars out of four, criticizing its pacing and plot. He recognized the film's ambition, aiming for "elegy" and "poetry" in its final act, but ultimately described it as flawed, writing, "We can see where it's headed, although it doesn't get there."[6] In a positive review, Bruce Fretts of Entertainment Weekly wrote that the movie "succeeds as a character study of a man whose idiosyncratic code of justice eventually catches up with him", and complimented Jeff Bridges' acting as vital to the film's success.[7] Variety, while also praising Jeff Bridges' performance, took a critical stance, observing that the film "comes to a near dead-stop in the final stretch".[8] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale.[9]

Wild Bill bombed at the box office. Produced on a budget of $30 million, it took in just over $2 million in the United States.

Hill was unhappy with the way the film was released. "I believe in the old adage that when you see the trailer for your movie and it's very different from the movie you've actually made, then you can assume the studio wanted something else," Hill said. However, he did add that "I don't think any other company would have made this film, so I'm very indebted to them for letting me do it."[10]