The ‘Cowboys & Aliens’ trailer played before ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pt. 1’ the other day, and the entire audience burst out laughing. I’m not sure that’s the response that director Jon Favreau was going for. Or maybe it is, I’m just not sure.
I guess we’ll find out when the movie hits theaters on July 29, 2011. It might be one of those movies that gets waaaayyyy too much buzz beforehand, so by the time people actually go see it, they’re like, whatever.
The film is such a funny little premise that combines at least 53 different genres, including sci-fi, fantasy, western and war, so I did a little research to see what the heck it’s all about.
‘Cowboys & Aliens’ is based on a 2006 graphic novel written by Fred Van Lente and Andrew Foley, and drawn by Dennis Calero and Luciano Lima, based on the Macroverse Bible from Scott Mitchell Rosenberg and his Platinum Studios.
The story takes place in the Old West, where a stranger named Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) with no memory of his past stumbles into the desert town of Absolution (religious overtones?), a town that lives under the iron rule of Col. Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford, even grumpier than he was in ‘Morning Glory’ – I guess maybe that role was to help him prepare for this one?).
Anyway, then a scary spaceship descends from the sky and starts abducting people in a blaze of blinding lights. Yep, aliens. Olivia Wilde plays Ella, a traveler who helps Jake pull together a posse of mismatched townsfolk, outlaws and Indians.
The movie certainly has some chops behind it, including Damon Lindelof, Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard and Steven Spielberg. Abigail Spencer, Keith Carradine, and Paul Dano are among the cast. And rumor has it that Daniel Craig was chosen because of his likeness to Yul Brynner, who of course, starred in the epic cowboy flick ‘The Magnificent Seven.’
Well, it’s certainly a different take on the alien movie, and isn’t that what I’ve been asking for? Who knows, maybe it’ll work. What do you think? Take a look at the trailer:
Images: Universal Pictures/DreamWorks SKG
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