Not content with rifling through the sand, swords and sandals genre looking for possible hits, part of the team that brought you 300 is now taking aim at the Western, with current trend Wyatt Earp at the forefront. Warner Bros. has bought TS Nowlin’s script Wild Guns for producer Gianni Nunnari’s Hollywood Gang%7B
Guns, according to the Heat Vision blog, will aim to blend elements from Tombstone and Sherlock Holmes, and sets its story shortly after the Civil War. Earp and usual comrade Doc Holliday will team up to rescue Sitting Bull’s daughter, who has been kidnapped by a dangerous, mysterious Shaman who is using his considerable powers to terrorize the plains.
It would seem that the Western is once again showing that it’s the genre that doesn’t die, instead going into hibernation and returning in mutant hybrid forms.
There’s no word on casting and no director has been attached just yet, so this could be a little while before it’s ready to hit the screen. But Nowlin seems to be turning into something of a hot property in scripting terms, with a project about Christopher Columbus set up with McG looking to direct and another movie about Marco Polo which Nunnari is overseeing.
Earp, meanwhile, is looking to be both the subject of an indie film about his early days starring Val Kilmer, and a comic book adaptation that Sam Raimi's been linked to for a while now.