Nexstar (Finally) Lands $4.6B Deal To Buy Media General

Forget Media General’s merger deal with Meredith. After months of negotiations, this morning it found a way to scrap that deal and accept $4.6 billion in cash and stock from Nexstar Broadcasting to create a local TV behemoth with 171 full power stations in 100 markets.

The deal is expected to close in the fall, assuming it’s approved by the FCC and antitrust officials. The buyer will then change its name to Nexstar Media Group, and would become the largest independent owner of CBS affiliates. The company says it plans to divest some stations in order to pass muster with the FCC’s ownership restrictions.

“We intend to implement our proven strategy of focusing on local programming and effective digital media marketing solutions across the assets being acquired and will marry best of breed practices from our existing operations with those from Media General,” Nexstar CEO Perry Sook says.

The companies agreed on terms earlier this month. They couldn’t complete the deal, though, without determining how Media General could back out of the $2.4 billion acquisition agreement it made in September with Meredith.

The magazine and TV station owner agreed to accept a $60 million break-up fee, as well as an opportunity to negotiate to buy some of Media Genera’s assets.

Terms of the Nexstar deal are complicated by Media General’s agreement to let the FCC auction some of the airwave spectrum it uses to wireless broadband providers. It would receive some of the proceeds.

But the basic agreement entitles Media General investors to receive for each share $10.55 and 0.1249 of a share in Nexstar Media. Media General shareholders would own about 34% of the stock. Two representatives from Media General would join the Nexstar board.

Nexstar made an unsolicited offer to buy Media General in September, after it announced its deal with Meredith. After weeks of dickering, on January 7 the companies unveiled the terms of the deal that they wanted pending resolution of the Meredith agreement.

Nexstar shares are down 4.4% in morning trading while Media General is unchanged. But Meredith is up 2.6%.

Game of Thrones

11 films that were rumoured to be directed by someone else

It's not that uncommon for a director to take their name off a film, and to leave the moniker Alan Smithee or whatever the current equivalent is behind. However, what's considerably rarer is when a film is released under the name of one director, but it's later revealed or rumoured that, actually, other hands were at work, either for a solid chunk or even the entirety of a production. That a film was, for want of a better phrase, 'ghost directed'.

Granted, some of these stories that we're about to tell have little chance of ever being fully confirmed, but here are some examples of where the helmer of a film has been called into question. They range from instances of the whole film being reportedly ghost-directed, to swathes on uncredited helming work being done.
TOMBSTONE



Name director: George P Cosmatos
But was it actually: Kurt Russell
Hannah Arterton & Leona Lewis Interview Clip: How did you get involved in the film? [Vertigo Films]

Hannah Arterton & Leona Lewis Interview Clip: How did you get involved in the film? [Vertigo Films]
00:37

A popular and successful telling of the Wyatt Earp story that thoroughly trumped Kevin Costner's attempts to cover the same ground a few months' later, Tombstone brought together a majestic cast, led by Kurt Russell, for a film that enjoys regular respins on disc.

However, a few years ago, it emerged that the late George P Cosmatos, hardly the most visionary director who walked the earth to be fair, might not have been the man calling the shots on the project after all. The real director? The film's star, Kurt Russell.

The story first surfaced in an article in True West magazine by Henry Cabot Beck, who visited the set during the film's production and made the discovery, only to promise Cosmatos that he wouldn't tell the story while the director was still alive.

Cosmatos died in 2005, and Beck subsequently revealed the secret: namely that after Kevin Jarre - the film's original director - left the project, Russell agreed to direct, with Cosmatos hired to basically do what the actor told him to do. As the article quotes Russell saying, "I'm going to give you [Cosmatos] a shot list every night, and that's what's going to be." It's unclear what hand Russell had, if any, in the director's cut of the film that was released on DVD back in 2002.

It's a fabulous and fascinating article, and one that tells the story better than we ever could. You can find it right here.

It also throws into question just who was behind the director's cut of the film that was released on DVD many years ago...
RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II



Named director: George P Cosmatos

But was it actually: Sylvester Stallone

George again, and this actually ties into the situation with Tombstone above.

Back when the Tombstone production was having trouble and the idea was put forward to get a front man in to shoot the shots he was told to, Kurt Russell and Sylvester Stallone - who worked together, of course, on Tango & Cash - had a phone conversation. As reported in the article we've linked to at the end of the Tombstone piece, Stallone revealed to Russell that Cosmatos served a similar function on the set of First Blood: Part Two. Or, to put it succinctly, that the second Rambo movie was apparently ghost-directed by Stallone, even though he didn't take credit for it. As with most of these stories, there's more smoke than firm fire to it, but we've seen little to refute this particular story either.

Just to stir things up further: we've been on some Internet forums that have also speculated that Cobra may well have had Stallone's hand in there somewhere too, although if that's the case, everyone concerned has been keeping mum about it. It's not, to be fair, a movie too many people would be keen to lay claim to.
POLTERGEIST



Named director: Tobe Hooper

But was it actually: Steven Spielberg

A long-running contentious one, this, with arguments either side. Certainly the lack of too much director involvement in the assorted disc releases of Poltergeist has poured some fuel on this particular fire, but the basis of the debate is this: that Tobe Hooper, when directing Poltergeist, was basically interpreting Steven Spielberg's instructions.

The rumour started back when the L.A. Times visited the set during production and noticed that Spielberg appeared to be directing the shots. It's little secret too that the pair didn't get along on the film. Furthermore, talking to AintItCool, one of the film's stars, the late Zelda Rubinstein, told the site, "I only worked six days on the film and Steven was there. Tobe set up the shots and Steven made the adjustments."

A more recent interview with Spielberg certainly gives that impression too. He said that "Tobe isn't... a take-charge sort of guy. If a question was asked and an answer wasn't immediately forthcoming, I'd jump in and say what we could do. Tobe would nod agreement, and that become the process of collaboration".

There was certainly enough smoke around the time of release for the Director's Guild of America to look into the matter, and one suggestion is that Spielberg was contractually blocked from directing another movie at the time, and thus brought Hooper in to be the face of the film.

Furthermore, an article in the L.A. Times published in May 1982 gave Hooper the chance to defend his position. "I don't understand why any of these questions have to be raised. I always saw this film as a collaborative situation between my producer, my writer, and myself. Two of those people were Steven Spielberg, but I directed the film and I did fully half of the story boards. I'm quite proud of what I did," he said.

Poltergeist was, by several accounts, a very, very heavily storyboarded movie, and the story runs that Spielberg was the guiding force behind these. It's also been suggested that once Hooper had finished shooting, he wasn't involved in the editing process. However, on the other side of the coin, it's been stated since that the whole Spielberg-directed-Poltergeist rumour was deliberately leaked to the press as the studio was wary at the time of having a movie from the director of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

For far more debate on the matter, here's a terrific link, from which we sourced the above L.A. Times quote.
STAR WARS: RETURN OF THE JEDI



Named director: Richard Marquand

But was it actually: George Lucas

There's a compelling argument that suggests that George Lucas works best when he's in partnership with another strong filmmaker. As such, bringing in Irvin Kershner to direct The Empire Strikes Back, under his stewardship, delivered results that are still talked about more than 30 years later.

But what of Return Of The Jedi? It was credited to Richard Marquand, who would go on to helm Jagged Edge before his premature death. Yet, before Star Wars entered his life, he had a low-key resume. Furthermore, the Welsh director was rumoured to not get on particularly well with the actors on Return Of The Jedi, and according to an interview back in 2004 with Irvin Kershner, Lucas and Kershner's assistant director actually took over in that department.

Since then, Lucas has played down the suggestion that the two had a poor working relationship. Marquand's side of the story, however, was never told, given that he died at the age of just 49 from a heart attack, back in 1987.

Incidentally, Lucas was rumoured to have asked the Director's Guild of America (DGA), an organisation he'd had spats with in the past, to adjust the credits of The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi for the later editions to give him a co-directing credit. The credits remained unchanged, although there was never convincing corroboration to back the story up.

We've a previously lost interview with the late Richard Marquand, where he talks about Return Of The Jedi, right here.
THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD



Named director: Christian Nyby But was it actually: Howard Hawks

An acclaimed thriller from 1951 starring Margaret Sheridan and Kenneth Tobey, The Thing From Another World is based on the a story by John Campbell, about scientific researchers in the Arctic who discover a spaceship in the ice. What's more, they find the pilot of the craft too, take him back to their base, thaw him out, and mayhem inevitably ensues.

The film was credited to Christian Nyby, a director with TV shows such as The Fugitive, I Spy, Perry Mason and Rawhide littering his CV, and who also edited Howard Hawk's pictures for a while. The Thing From Another World was his first directorial credit, however, yet there's a strong core of opinion that suggests it was actually Howard Hawks calling the shots.

Hawks is credited as being producer of the film, but there have been heavy suggestions that he took a far more hands-on role. Nyby himself was said to have conceded that Hawks was influential on set, while Kenneth Tobey reportedly said that the latter was definitely in charge. James Arness, meanwhile, who played The Thing, apparently refuted this and was adamant it was Nyby directing.

The general argument is that the style of the film is more in keeping with the Hawks back catalogue as opposed to what Nyby would go on to make. Yet, as an article at B Monster argues, given that Nyby was schooled in the Hawks way of making films, that's arguably not much of a surprise. That article is here.

As things stand, this one's never been 100% cleared up. IMDb backs out and lists them both, but we may never definitively know whose hand was at the helm. Whoever it was, it's still a terrific film, though.
TANGO & CASH



Named director: Andrei Konchalovsky

Rumoured directors: Albert Magnoli, Stuart Baird

Andrei Konchalovsky was always an unusual choice to direct what turned out to be a much-loved 80s action vehicle for Kurt Russell and Sylvester Stallone. Yet the production itself was fraught with problems. Konchalovsky eventually took directing credit, but amidst the walkouts and changes in personnel that plagued the film, he was fired by producer Jon Peters. He was in good company: original director of photography Barry Sonnenfeld - who would go on to direct the Men In Black movies, amongst others - was sacked, reportedly at the behest of Stallone.

The film was still in production when Konchalovsky got his marching orders, and it was Albert Magnoli who was brought in to finish the shoot. Even then, though, the job of cutting the movie together went to someone else, with Stuart Baird reportedly overhauling the film in the edit suite (a service he's provided to other productions, too).

With further rumours about more cooks spoiling the broth, it's difficult to come up with a single name as the director of Tango & Cash. And while it's not unusual for a director to lose control of their film in the edit suite, it's far rarer for it to happen while cameras are still rolling.

As such, Konchalovksy gets the credit, but it's hard to say that it was ultimately he who directed the end product. We looked at the movie in more detail here.
A NIGHT AT THE ROXBURY



Named director: John Fortenberry

But was it actually: Amy Heckerling

A fairly forgettable comedy (although those amongst us who love it, really really love it), A Nighty At The Roxbury was one of a procession of spin-offs from Saturday Night Live that utterly failed to ignite the box office, or inspire too many laughs. It was the movie that gave Will Ferrell a solid role in a film for the first time, though, and it was the first film script that he wrote that got made as well.

Behind the camera was John Fortenberry, who has earned his stripes before and after with television work (and he clearly gets extra points for working on Greg The Bunny), and he's not helmed a big screen release since. There appears, however, to be some confusion with regards A Night At The Roxbury, though.

We've read in more than one place that Amy Heckerling, the director of the likes of Clueless and Look Who's Talking, did some directorial work on the picture, although it's hard to ascertain the scale of it. Our best guess is that she did uncredited work on some scenes in the film, which would still make it Fortenberry's movie. Wherever the truth lies, though, the end result doesn't quite have the fanbase for a detailed DVD digging into the real story...
BLACK MAGIC



Named director: Gregory Ratoff

But was it actually: Orson Welles

The 1949 adaptation of the Alexander Dumas novel, Black Magic starred Orson Welles, and if you read the credits, it was directed by Gregory Ratoff. Ratoff was best known for appearing as Max Fabian in All About Eve, and the Russian-born filmmaker was also one of a pair of producers who originally bought the rights to the James Bond series.

In Black Magic, Welles plays 18th century hypnotist, scammer and magician Joseph Balsamo, in a generally forgettable mix of mystery and romance. This, however, is one of a couple of projects that Welles was reported to have been calling more shots on than the credits may have you believe.

At the very least, it's pretty well known that Welles directed several scenes in the film (and this was a project that had gone through several directors by the time cameras rolled). Ratoff retained the directorial credit for the final cut, even though his overall influence across the project is hard to ascertain.

Welles' hand was also rumoured to be more prevalent than declared in other projects too. Also in some degree of contention was La Decade Prodigieuse, a French movie from Claude Chabrol and the 1944 adaptation of Jane Eyre that was supposedly helmed by Robert Stevenson.
SUPER MARIO BROS



Named directors: Annabel Jankel, Rocky Morton

But was it actually: Dean Semler, Roland Joffe

The very first big screen movie based on a videogame, Super Mario Bros set a trend that pretty much every film based on a game has followed since. It's also a film that has more directors than it may at first appear. The pair credited with helming the big screen Mario Bros outing are Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton, most famed, of course, for Mr Max Headroom.

However, one of the film's producers, Roland Joffe, is widely believed to have done a solid amount of directing work on the film without credit, and likewise its cinematographer Dean Semler has been reported as taking on some helming duties too. Neither got a directing credit for their work, and you'd imagine neither has been particularly keen to get one, either.

It's known that Jankel and Morton were locked out of the editing room. They also weren't involved, according to reports, in the additional photography that was subsequently required to get the film finished.
A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION



Named director: Robert Altman

But was it actually: Paul Thomas Anderson

The influence that director Robert Altman had over Paul Thomas Anderson can be clearly seen when you put the likes of Nashville and Magnolia side by side. Altman was 80 years old and in a frail state when he tackled what would turn out to be his final film, A Prairie Home Companion, and apparently unable to undertake much of the physical side of directing a film.

Reports around the time of the film's production suggested that Anderson was ultimately brought on board to ghost direct the film, but at the very least, he was on set as a back-up. Still, the suggestion was that Altman watched what was happening on monitors and gave out orders, but that Anderson was tackling the hands-on work, and dealing with the actors themselves.

Other reports argue that, as is quite common with directors of advanced age, Anderson was actually on stand-by to take over the film if Altman couldn't. As it stood, Altman got sole directing credit for the film, in line with DGA rules.
THE ROOM



Named director: Tommy Wiseau

But was it really: Sandy Schklair

A regular favourite at London's Prince Charles Cinema is 2003's The Room, Tommy Wiseau's movie that's earned a reputation for, well, not being one of the finest films of all time.

Wiseau is credited as writing, producing and directing The Room, and he stars in it too, of course. But back in 2011, there was some doubt as to whether he'd been calling all of the shots behind the camera.

As Slashfilm reported, Schklair had told Entertainment Weekly that Wiseau hired him to be script supervisor on the movie. But by Schklair's account, the following conversation too place:

Schklair: “Umm…you want me to direct your project?”
Wiseau: “No! I am director!”
Schklair: “Yeah, you’re the director, whatever. But you want me to direct your movie for you?”
Wiseau: “Yes, please.”

Wiseau denies this happened, and has refusted Schklair's claim to directorial credit. But Slashfilm also quotes an anonymous actor from the film, who argued that "the script supervisor ended up sort of directing the movie. Tommy was so busy being an actor that this other guy directed the whole thing".

Wiseau remains credited with the picture.

Also...

PSYCHO: The Shower Scene



Named director: Alfred Hitchcock

But was it actually: Saul Bass

There's little doubt that Psycho is the work of Alfred Hitchcock, but what about its signature scene? The authorship of the shower sequence was thrown into doubt when legendary titles designer Saul Bass - a long-time collaborator of Hitchcock's (also taking on some storyboarding work for the great director) - claimed to have directed it. Since then, the general consensus seems to be that Bass was certainly a contributor, having helped design the scene, but it was absolutely Hitchcock calling the shots (Janet Leigh being among the many who have confirmed this).



Myths & Further Rumours

STRAIGHT TIME

This 1978 thriller was a pet project for its star Dustin Hoffman, who was originally down to direct the film. He did, in fact, take charge for the first few days, yet there was a conflict with the studio over the final cut, and Hoffman ultimately brought in Ulu Grosbard to direct the film instead.

DANCES WITH WOLVES

As Kevin Costner's directorial debut, Dances With Wolves, was reaping acclaim and box office gold, rumours surfaced that a sizeable chunk of the film had actually been steered by Costner's old friend, Kevin Reynolds. Reynolds, who went on to helm Costner in Waterworld and Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves, did direct a few sequences, including the terrific buffalo hunt sequence, but it was still Costner's picture. Kevin Reynolds talked about filming that scene in some detail when we had the chance to interview him. You can read the article here.

WATERWORLD

While we're talking about Kevin Costner and Kevin Reynolds, it'd be remiss not to mention the spat between the pair that saw the latter quit the film. As such, it was reportedly Costner who supervised the editing stages of the movie, with no input from Reynolds whatsoever. More on Waterworld, here.

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE

During the film's production, it was rumoured that one of its producers, Richard Donner, was more hands-on than might have been expected. However, Fox moved to nix such rumours, and to make it clear that Gavin Hood was very much in charge.

BOLLYWOOD

Dig into the world of Bollywood movies, and stories of ghost directors are equally apparent. Take, for example, last year's action thriller Acid House, where rumours were so rife that director Supern Verma came out and flatly denied that producer and established director Sanjay Gupta was, in fact, calling the shots. Other stories of similar ilk are not too tricky to find, either...

Feel free to discuss this article and suggest any we've missed in the comments below. The original version of this article appeared in 2010, and it's been revised and updated since.

Film Review: Kurt Russell in ‘Bone Tomahawk’

Courtesy of RLJ Entertainment

October 1, 2015 | 07:27PM PT

A witty oater with a bloody genre twist, S. Craig Zahler's freshman feature may just find the cult following it seeks.

Film Critic @guylodge

Cowboys-and-Indians antics have rarely been more antic than they are in “Bone Tomahawk,” a gleefully grisly genre gazpacho that matches a rousing sense of Old West derring-do to a comic sensibility as dark as chewing tobacco — and at least as much of an acquired taste. But for those with a head for loopily discursive humor (not to mention a stomach for some inspired grotesquerie), S. Craig Zahler’s debut feature will come as a most violent delight. Winking explicitly to “The Searchers” with its ostensibly classical tale of four mismatched frontiersmen out to rescue abducted townsfolk from the clutches of a savage (and emphatically fictitious) native tribe, “Bone Tomahawk” may seem over-indulgent at 132 minutes, yet it’s the wayward digressions of Zahler’s script — navigated with palpable enjoyment by an expert, Kurt Russell-led ensemble — that are most treasurable in a film that commits wholeheartedly to its own curiosity value.

Unspooling as the closer of this year’s Fantastic Fest, before headlining the Cult strand of the London Film Festival later this month, “Bone Tomahawk” is already being positioned by sprocket-opera programmers as a cult item in the making. That may be an impossible status to target or anticipate, but Zahler’s film is at once broadly and narrowly appealing enough to gain tickled admirers via word of mouth. The first acquisition for the rebranded RLJ Entertainment, it is assured a long ancillary life even if it rides into a relatively swift theatrical sunset.

That should work fine for a film with little interest in instant gratification. Saving its most eye-popping action for its final reel — when it flips register, with wicked nonchalance, from oater to splatter — the pic is mostly content to lope rather than gallop across its two hours and change. Bullets are fired and bones are broken, but Zahler counts on his flavorful, circuitous dialogue to build drawling chemistry between its four male leads. It’s a shaggy approach, indicative of the novelist-turned-helmer’s literary streak, that pays off: Even at the film’s most extravagantly silly or gruesome, there’s a springy human connection between its modified stock characters that gives it an edge over many comparably irreverent B-movie pastiches.

STYLEMAKERS

Style Innovators: Driving Change In Fashion And Entertainment

Explore the heart and soul of what drives some of the top creative minds in fashion, beauty, and style on their roads to success.

Still, there’s no bait-and-switch at play here. In the opening beats of an extended pre-credits sequence, a casual throat slitting — followed in short order by a rock to the skull — sets the tone for the squelchy gore that will eventually follow. Bickering outlaws Buddy (Sid Haig) and Purvis (David Arquette) stumble across the burial ground of an unnamed indigenous tribe, whose living members make their displeasure over the intrusion immediately known. Only Purvis, grievously wounded, escapes with his life; 11 days later, he’s arrested and imprisoned in the optimistically christened few-horse town of Bright Hope, under the auspices of weary-wise sheriff Hunt (Russell).

Alas, Purvis brings more than just gurning criminal hostility to the sleepy community, as it turns out that his bloodthirsty attackers aren’t willing to let things lie. Overnight, he’s kidnapped, along with jail guard Nick (Evan Jonigkeit) and Samantha (Lili Simmons), the doctor charged with tending the prisoner’s wounds. The search is on, then, for a brutal horde of cavedwellers that, as a local Native American instructs Hunt, “men like you would not distinguish from Indians.” (While Zahler delights elsewhere in politically incorrect humor, the representational disclaimer here could not be louder or clearer.) Setting off in search of the tribe’s remote lair, Hunt is joined by a ragtag trio of compadres: his bumbling deputy Chicory (Richard Jenkins), dashingly mustachioed gunslinger Brooder (Matthew Fox), and Samantha’s cowpoke husband, Arthur (Patrick Wilson), whose sturdy machismo is somewhat critically undercut by a broken leg.

It’s this beleaguered quartet’s setback-strewn progress that forms the body of the film, as they work toward a kind of reluctant brotherhood amid much sniping, snarking and arbitrary rumination. The journey would certainly feel longer without the spry interplay between the actors: All four are in terrific form here, savoring Zahler’s salty verbal peculiarities as they riff loosely on such genre stereotypes as the jaded lawman, the wholemeal hero and the village idiot. Russell, so underused of late, makes a stern claim on Western terrain he’s soon to revisit in Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight”; Wilson and Fox, the latter playing pleasingly against type, wittily inhabit reverse sides of the same alpha coin. It’s Jenkins, meanwhile, whose winningly woebegone mien and sneakily perfect timing prove the value of the off-topic writing: One might think a lengthy disquisition on flea circuses would be prime cutting-room fodder in a tense revenge thriller, but Jenkins’ delivery proves otherwise.

Not every viewer who enjoys this kind of horseplay, so to speak, will be equally receptive to the pic’s gut-twisting left turn into hard horror territory once the mysterious so-called “troglodytes” finally show their inventively adorned faces. Without spoiling any lurid surprises, however, the viewers’ disorientation should mirror that of the characters as the narrative descends into another realm entirely.

It’s in the genre twist that “Bone Tomahawk’s” lovingly bronzed craft contributions really prove their mettle, with Benji Bakshi’s sunbaked widescreen lensing taking on a seamier sense of claustrophobia precisely when required. There’s a subtle degree of revue-style exaggeration to the pic’s timber-textured period production design and natty costumes, appropriately planting proceedings just shy of reality — though excellent sound design could hardly be more crunchily immediate. A leanly atmospheric score, co-composed by the helmer, peaks with a hilarious parody of a regional folk dirge that shows up — like much else in the film — the shortcomings of Seth MacFarlane’s more innocuous, but fatally strained, Western satire “A Million Ways to Die in the West.” Among the other virtues of his debut, Zahler has surely found the one-million-and-first.

Film Review: Kurt Russell in 'Bone Tomahawk'

Reviewed at Covent Garden Hotel screening room, London, Sept. 16, 2015. (In Fantastic Fest — closer; London Film Festival — Cult Gala.) Running time: 132 MIN.

Production

An RLJ Entertainment release of a Caliber Media presentation in association with Realmbulder Prods., the Fyzz Facility. (International sales: Celluloid Dreams, Paris.) Produced by Dallas Sonnier, Jack Heller. Executive producers, Wayne Marc Godfrey, Robert Jones, David Gilbery, Jon D. Wagner, R. Scott Fort, Hengameh Panahi, Peter Sherayko. Co-producers, Gregory Zuk, Amanda Mortimer.

Crew

Directed, written by S. Craig Zahler. Camera (color, widescreen), Benji Bakshi; editors, Fred Raskin, Greg D'Auria; music, Jeff Herriott, Zahler; production designer, Freddy Waff; art director, Laura Evans; set decorator, Goar Galstyan; costume designer, Chantal Filson; sound, Brian Hackett; supervising sound editor, Craig Kyllonen; re-recording mixer, Dan Brennan; visual effects supervisor, Pete Sussi; stunt coordinator, Chris Carnel, Darrell Craig Davis; line producer, Jon D. Wagner; associate, Joseph Gabay; assistant director, Dave Halls; casting, Matthew Maisto.

This new Kurt Russell Western sounds really promising

Who doesn’t like Tombstone? No one, that’s who. (You hear me, commenters? No one.) The Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer film about the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral may have had a troubled production (including the dismissal of original director Kevin Jarre several weeks into filming, and his replacement by George P. Cosmatos, who allegedly was just a “ghost-director” for Russell) but the resultant picture remains one of the best Westerns of the 1990s.
I enjoy the Tombstone experience—and the Kurt Russell experience in general—so my curiosity was piqued by a report in Deadline about Bone Tomahawk, a new Russell Western that is getting ready to go into production. Today, Patrick Wilson and Matthew Fox both joined the film’s cast, which also already includes Richard Jenkins. The trade describes the film as:

“…the brutal tale of four men attempting to rescue a group of captives from a band of cannibals who live on the edge of civilization. Wilson will play Arthur O’Dwyer, a thoughtful cowboy whose rise to the foreman position of a cattle outfit is interrupted by an unfortunate accident that reshapes his life in unforeseen ways. Fox has the role of John Brooder, an eloquent gentleman whose whose dark inclinations have put him and his polished weapons at the very edge of the Western frontier.”

Mmm, “dark inclinations” and “polished weapons” sort of makes the part sound like Fox’s bad guy in Alex Cross, which is one of the great crazy performances of the last couple years. (He played a psychopathic hitman/MMA fighter named Picasso because he leaves Mad Magazine-style fold-in drawings on his victim’s bodies.) Also, his character is named John Brooder. Do you think he’s going to brood a lot in the movie guys? I mean he has to, right? It’s right there in his name! So this is even better news than it initially seemed.

Bone Tomahawk (great title, by the way) was written by S. Craig Zahler, a Black List-anointed screenwriter making his directorial debut. Hopefully things work out better for him than Jarre on Tombstone. If they do, this could be one of my most anticipated movies of next year.

Goldie Hawn Getting Married to Kurt Russell After 30 Years Together?

Get the Most Popular Mstars News

(Photo : Jason Merritt/Getty Images) 

 

Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell have been together for 30 years and are reportedly finally getting married. The Hollywood couple, who started dating in 1983 while working together on Swing Shift, are planning a Wild West-themed wedding ceremony.

Hawn and Russell first met in 1968 on the set of their movie The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band. 
 
The couple didn't actually start dating until nearly 20 years later in 1983, while working together again in the romantic comedy Swing Shift. The couple also starred together in the comedy Overboard in 1987.

Russell, 64, was previously married to actress Season Hubley from 1979 to 1983.

Hawn, 70, has been married twice previously. She was married for seven years to Gus Trikonis, but they divorced in 1976.

Her second marriage was to singer Bill Hudson from 1976 to 1982. They have two children together, actress Kate Hudson and actor Oliver Hudson.

The Hollywood couple also have a 29-year-old son named Wyatt Russell together, who is a former hockey player and actor. 
 
Hawn spoke to Porter magazine previously, explaining why she and Russell had never tied the knot.
The actress stated, "A lasting relationship isn't about marriage. It's about compatibility and communication. And you both need to want it to work. If one person does not want it to work, it isn't going to work."

"Intention is the key. It's also about not losing yourself in each other. Being together, two pillars holding up the house and the roof, and being different, not having to agree on everything, learning how to deal with not agreeing. Everything's a choice."

Hawn and Russell will reportedly wed on their Aspen, Colorado, ranch.

An insider revealed, "It’s going to be cowboy hats, horses and rock ’n’ roll. All their relatives are thrilled that they have at last decided to tie the knot."

What the Hell Happened to Kurt Russell?

ADVERTISEMENT

Kurt Russell

Kurt Russell has had an extremely long career.  So long that a lot of audiences probably don’t remember his career as a child actor.  Russell started making TV appearances in the late 1950s through the 60s.  In the 70s, he became the top star at Disney.  In the 80s, Russell and director John Carpenter created iconic anti-heroes.  Russell continued to work in various dramas throughout his career.  And yet, over the course of his long career, he never quite reached A-list status.

What the hell happened?

Let me state up front that Russell had the kind of career most actors would kill for.  He has worked steadily for decades without ever being pigeon-holed to a certain genre.  Even in his 60s, the guy is still working in some pretty high-profile movies.  So this article isn’t about a career implosion like some others in the series.  The question here is why Russell wasn’t bigger.  Why didn’t he achieve the same level of stardom as some of his co-stars?

Kurt Russell – Child Actor

Russell’s father, Bing Russell, was a character actor who appeared on several TV shows in the 50’s.  He introduced his son to acting as a child.  They frequently worked on the same projects.  Bing had a guest role on the Western, Sugarfoot which lead to a recurring role for Kurt.

Wait!  Sugarfoot was real?

As a fan of Arrested Development, I know Sugarfoot from an episode in which Jason Bateman tried to win favor by pretending to remember the show’s theme song.  I always assumed that Sugarfoot was a funny-sounding name made up for the show.  But no, it’s real.  Russell played the role of “Boy” on the pilot episode.  In case you ever need to sing the theme song to impress Dick Van Patten, here it is:

Kurt Russell – Dennis the Menace – 1962

In 1962, Russell appeared as one of the neighbor kids in an episode of the popular sitcom, Dennis the Menace.

Kurt Russell – It Happened at the World’s Fair – 1963

Russell made his movie debut with an uncredited role opposite Elvis Presley in the 1963 movie, It Happened at the World’s Fair.  As we’ll see later, Presley is a significant figure in Russell’s career.  Here’s a clip of a young Russell kicking the King in the shin:

Kurt Russell – The Man from U.N.C.L.E. – 1964

In 1964, Russell made guest appearances on several popular TV shows.  Here he is with Robert Vaughn on The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Kurt Russell – The Fugitive – 1964 – 1966

Russell also played Lt. Phillip Gerard’s son on the adventure series, The Fugitive.

Kurt Russell – Guns of Diablo – 1965

Russell appeared in several Westerns including Gunsmoke and The Virginian.  He starred in the short-lived Western series, The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters.  The final episode of the show was then expanded and adapted into a movie called The Guns of Diablo (pictured above with Charles Bronson).

Kurt Russell – Gilligan’s Island – 1965

In 1965, Russell guest starred on Gilligan’s Island.  He played “Jungle Boy”.

Kurt Russell – Daniel Boone – 1965 – 1969

Russell also appeared in five episodes of the Walt Disney hit show, Daniel Boone.

Kurt Russell – Lost in Space – 1966

Russell appeared in so many TV shows in the mid-60s that I am cherry-picking here.  Otherwise, this article would go on for days.  Here he is in a 1966 episode of Lost in Space.

Kurt Russell’s Roaring Rampage of Revenge: America’s Cult Badass Is Ready to Blow You Away

“You never know when a movie’s going to do well,” mused Kurt Russell, assessing the future cult status of his new Western on a recent afternoon in Los Angeles.

No, not Quentin Tarantino’s Hateful Eight. His other new Western, the Searchers-meets-Cannibal Holocaust pic Bone Tomahawk, in which the legendary actor plays a lawman battling savage people-eaters in the Old West.

“The Thing came out the year of E.T.” he exclaimed, letting loose a hearty Kurt Russell laugh. “Oops, wrong monster!”

Before starring as a gruff bounty hunter nicknamed “The Hangman” in this Christmas’s highly anticipated Hateful Eight, Russell leads the ensemble cast of indie “graphic Western” Bone Tomahawk, in theaters and on VOD this month. We’re talking the day after the gory period horror flick premiered at Austin’s Fantastic Fest, where Russell was scheduled to appear before an old baseball injury sidelined him.

“I found out I have severe calcific rotator cuff tendinitis with a partially torn rotator cuff,” said Russell, who fears he might have to have surgery next month. “Now I don’t know how I did it this time, but 40 years ago I did it playing professional baseball. It’s what took me out of the game.”

If it hadn’t ended his baseball career, the switch-hitting batting champ and former child actor might not have returned to show business. Five years later he teamed up for the first time with a young filmmaker named John Carpenter on an Elvis biopic that nabbed him his first Emmy nomination and marked the start of a fruitful friendship.

Over the years Russell, 64, has seen his quirkier indie roles become celebrated cult classics in the hearts of his fans. His work with Carpenter in particular raised a generation of VHS-devouring action-sci-fi nuts who worship at the altar of Snake Plissken, Jack Burton, and R.J. MacReady.

More recently there was Stuntman Mike, the muscle car-driving serial killer of Tarantino’s Death Proof, the movie that plucked Russell out of a run of feel-good studio hero roles and gave him a renewed badass raison d'être.

“I love that people come up to me more and more now and say, ‘I just saw Death Proof!’” Russell said. “Sometimes movies come out at the wrong time or are misunderstood, there are all these reasons. I don’t know why, but whatever it is, I’m drawn to them.”

It’s not just the genre antiheroes with attitudes that Russell gets approached for. Overboard, his 1987 comedy co-starring longtime partner Goldie Hawn, is another. “People love it, and it’s very different from Escape from New York or The Thing or Big Trouble in Little China or Used Cars or Tombstone. I’ve done other movies, but the ones that you look in their eyes and they get something out of them, they mean more.”

Russell diehards should get a kick out of his turn in Bone Tomahawk as Sheriff Franklin Hunt, the mustachioed moral authority tasked with keeping the peace in the frontier town of Bright Hope. That peace is shattered when cave-dwelling cannibal savages kidnap three townsfolk, including the wife of a local cowboy (Patrick Wilson), prompting Hunt to lead a rescue mission into desolate terrain filled with bandits and barbarians.  

The brutally violent indie horror brings Russell full circle to his Western roots. Long before he starred as Wyatt Earp opposite Val Kilmer in Tombstone, Russell cut his teeth on television Westerns like Sugarfoot, The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, and The Virginian before launching his movie career as one of Disney’s brightest 1970s contract stars.  

“Tombstone was one that now is just on everybody’s Western list because as one guy wrote recently, it’s just so damn much fun to watch,” Russell said of the 1993 biopic that he once claimed he essentially directed via Rambo II helmer George V. Cosmatos, during an infamously tumultuous production.

Kurt Russell in 'Bone Tomahawk.' (Caliber Media Company)

“I think this one you can’t put a category on,” he said of Bone Tomahawk, written and directed by first-timer S. Craig Zahler. “You can call it a horror-Western, whatever that means, but that’s not going to give anybody an image or anything to understand. I call it ‘graphic Western’… The beginning gives you only a little hint of what you’ll see, but by the end it goes into hyperviolence.”

“It wasn’t that long ago, and men were very different. Those men were proud—as my character says, in civilized cities like Bright Hope you look a man in the eye when you talk to him.”

Russell proudly recalled haggling on set over one memorably horrific scene that will go down as one of the best movie kills in recent memory. Thanks to Kurt, one of Bone Tomahawk’s killer cavemen strips a man naked before dispatching him with the titular weapon. Originally he was to be fully clothed but Russell put himself in the cannibal’s shoes, so to speak.

“I said, ‘That’s insane—that ruins the movie. We can’t do that.’ We had a long talk about it, because then it’s just violence for violence’s sake,” he said. “These troglodytes are doing nothing more than skinning an elk—they’re not bad guys, these other people just came to the territory, and thank God, that’s fantastic, it’s like free food! We don’t even have to go hunting! Pull these guys up, string ’em up, and we can eat them over the next couple of weeks.”

The gusto with which Russell will dive into a lengthy, wholehearted defense of evil limb-hacking cannibals is one indicator of the geek heart beating within. Waxing philosophical on misunderstood cannibals, his musings jumped to how critics savaged The Thing without looking for deeper meaning beneath its B-movie trappings.

Get The Daily Beast In Your Inbox

• Daily DigestStart and finish your day with the smartest, sharpest takes from The Daily Beast
• Cheat SheetA speedy, smart summary of news and must-reads from The Daily Beast and across the Web

By clicking "Subscribe", you agree to have read the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy

Follow The Daily Beast

 

“The movie The Thing, when it came out the reviewers had a very hard time seeing the movie. Which is to say, it’s a movie about paranoia, it’s not a movie about a horrific thing. The Thing, in its fight for survival, has been to many different planets so to us it looks insane. And to us, the troglodytes in Bone Tomahawk behave insanely, like savages.”

“But they’re just doing their thing, trying to make it,” he said, laughing. “They don’t like it when people roll through their hood.”

Like many of his films, Bone Tomahawk can be read as a prismatic exploration of masculinity hiding beneath a surface mélange of guns, monsters, action, and mayhem. That thread pops up in everything from the clumsy swagger of Big Trouble in Little China and his Jack Burton to this year’s Furious 7, in which his beer-swilling government spook infiltrates Vin Diesel’s diesel-fueled familia.

“It reminded me of how different the male species is today in America than it was just a hundred years ago,” said Russell. “It wasn’t that long ago, and men were very different. Those men were proud—as my character says, in civilized cities like Bright Hope you look a man in the eye when you talk to him.”

“You wore a tie, you wore a hat, and there was decorum to be presented in town,” he continued.
“They were the modern man. And these guys have no clue to what they’re getting themselves into, but it doesn’t matter because they all felt a sense of responsibility for one reason or another. Once you get to know them you really pull for them against these savages who are extremely brutal. It’s kind of fun to watch and see who comes out and who doesn’t.”

These days for Russell, life is full of wine. He runs his GoGi Wines label out of the Santa Rita hills outside of Santa Barbara, where he fell in love with the local vintage while filming Death Proof. His passion for vino pairs well with his Aspen ranch, where he raises high-end beef.

“It’s not something I just slapped my name on,” said Russell, who occasionally slings glasses of his exclusive line behind the bar at the 1800 Union Hotel and Saloon in Los Alamos. “I’m real serious about it. I’m a real pinot poodle. [We have] a serious, complex, elegant pinot noir that’s full-bodied and very structured.”

But given his epicurean endeavors and film roles in Hateful Eight and the upcoming Deepwater Horizon, forays into the indie genre like Bone Tomahawk may be fewer and farther between.

“[I think], who is the director? What does he want to do? What’s the studio? What’s the push going to be? This is a labor of love, there’s no question,” he said. “I mean, there’s no money in it; you’re just doing it because you want to see it done. I’m going to be doing very few of these because I don’t know if it’s worth it. It’s physically hard, you’ve got to make them fast in 23 days or something like that, but we did great, I think we pulled it off. All the actors’ hearts were really in it.”

“Everybody’s working for peanuts and we were having a good time having a rough time,” he continued. “I think all of us thought, we’re never going to read this kind of stuff. This doesn’t come along very often and it’s really different. But who’s going to see it? I don’t know.”

Next year’s Peter Berg-directed true tale disaster drama Deepwater Horizon, Russell predicts, will be controversial. “What they did was they came in there and tried to capture the way it felt to be on the rig. That’s where Pete’s coming from. And of course you do a little bit of the building up to it, which is to ask, Who’s to blame here? That’s the controversial part, but I don’t think that’s what he was as interested in as much as this is what happens when it goes wrong.”

“You leave it up to the audience to figure some things out,” he said. “Like, it ain’t easy getting oil out of the ground and into your car.”

Making a studio movie out of the 2010 BP oil spill disaster means taking on several of the powerful corporate entities involved, which Russell says may prove tricky for the Lionsgate release.

“There are still some outstanding lawsuits on that, and there’s enough to make you wonder,” said Russell. “Obviously these guys had to deal with a bank of lawyers everywhere, because these are big players. You’ve got BP and Halliburton, the big outfit that builds everything, you’ve got [rig operator] Transocean… multi-gazillion-dollar companies that have to deal with problems all the time, and I think they’ve all been looking at, ‘You can say this,’ ‘You can’t say that.’ They were doing that up until the days of shooting. I suppose in the editing they’ll have to show it to everybody and I wouldn’t be surprised if this goes through a whole process before it can get out there.”

Weinstein Co.

In the meantime, Russell will be seen in back-to-back Westerns, including a reunion with Tarantino the actor calls “the greatest experience I’ve ever had.”

“It’s a great thing to make movies with John Carpenter, Bob Zemeckis, Ron Howard, Mike Nichols—I don’t want to leave anybody out but I’ll leave at least 10 of them out—but it’s always a great time,” he said. “But when you’re working with Quentin, he’s a different thing. He just loves it so much that you chuckle. You really do laugh at how much fun he’s having, and you’re having. It’s hard work with him because nobody wants to let anybody down.”

Russell stars in the post-Civil War ensemble piece as John “The Hangman” Ruth, a frontier bounty hunter escorting female prisoner Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) across wintry Wyoming to be hanged for her crimes.

Hateful Eight’s murderer’s row of thesps includes Samuel L. Jackson, Walton Goggins, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern, and Demian Bichir, who shot the 70mm pic with DP Robert Richardson last December in Colorado, using the same lenses used to film Ben-Hur.

“All the actors kept passing the ball off—and when it’s passed to you you’d better not drop it, you’d better carry it across the line,” Russell said of the shoot, which reunited much of the cast Tarantino assembled last year to do a live-read after an early script leaked online.

Russell was one of Tarantino’s first calls. “Now, I’d heard from my daughter about some script that Quentin had that was leaked and he was mad and decided not to do it,” Russell recalled. “But I didn’t know it was this. We had a rehearsal. Then they said, we rehearse again tomorrow and I thought, ‘Wow, whoever he wants to see this it must be important to him.’ And then I learned halfway through the second day that we were going to do it in front of 1,200 people in a theater! I thought, Jesus Christ! I also found out that was the script that had evidently leaked. There’s always stuff going around and I’m the last to know.”

“Afterwards I asked Quentin, ‘Did you see what you wanted to see?’ He said, ‘Yeah—it gave me a lot of answers.’ Months later they call and say, Quentin wants to do the movie,” he said.

The resulting film is vastly different from what attendees saw during that live-read, although Russell won’t spill just what’s been changed.

“There are quite a few changes,” he teased, “but I’m not going to tell you what changed. I’m not going to ruin it for you! But the changes are spectacular. I see now why he was mad about it being leaked, because he was in the process of working it. He wasn’t anywhere near done yet.”

“He made significant changes in terms of what the first act is, and leading up to it,” he continued, dancing around specifics. “This is not different, but it’s fleshed out—it’s a matured version of it. He was just taking that thing out for a spin that night: The engine starts, it’s got pretty good traction coming out of the turn… but I want another 100 horsepower so we’ve got to put a brand new engine in it, I’m going to need a complete paint job, I’m going to take the bumpers off of it. Now he’s got his finished version of what he wanted to do.”

Russell did reveal how he celebrated the conclusion of the Hateful Eight shoot: by supplying the cast and crew with bottles of his wine. “It’ll probably be the last time I do that because it was a lot of wine,” he said, unleashing another of those booming Kurt Russell belly laughs. “And my wine is $75 a bottle, so a case of wine is 900 bucks. And it goes fast!”