After riding high on the success of Walk The Line, writer-director James Mangold was brought crashing back down into the cold, hard reality of Hollywood life by 3:10 To Yuma, the Western remake he’d been planning for years, being put into turnaround by Columbia.
But now there’s good news as the movie has been rescued from the depths of production purgatory by Relativity Media. The company, which plans to partly or totally finance the film, is now out looking for a distributor to help share the cost.
And Mangold must be glad that Russell Crowe’s still ready to star – with word that Christian Bale’s looking to join the film as the rancher trying to ensure that Crowe’s outlaw makes it before the judge.
3:10 – as previously reported – is a remake of a 1957 Western that starred Glenn Ford. Mangold has been trying to get it off the ground for years, with the likes of Tom Cruise and Eric Bana flirting with the star parts as recently as this year. But now, with Crowe and Bale making time, Mangold might actually get to sit in the director's chair before he's too old to lift the megaphone.