JON FAVREAU
Cowboys And Aliens

cowboys aliens

Actor turned director Jon Favreau made quite a splash with the Robert Downey Jr. starring IRON MAN super hero series. Now he pulls in James Bond and Indiana Jones for a genre-fusing action adventure with COWBOYS & ALIENS, bringing Sci-Fi to the old West.

Check out an interview / Q&A with Favreau, a Flamedrop / Shadow Realm review of the movie,
plus a Cowboys & Aliens merchandise competition link


cowboys aliens stars
Stars Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde & director Jon Favreau
c 2011 Getty Images / picture by Vittorio Zunino Celotto


CLICK HERE
for the Flamedrop / ShadowRealm review of Cowboys & Aliens


When Jon Favreau first heard the title of the film that he was destined, ultimately, to direct he was immediately intrigued. As he points out, ‘Cowboys and Aliens’ is the kind of phrase that makes you sit up, pay attention and ask, what, exactly is that all about?

At that time, Favreau was deep into another film and it was simply the words ‘Cowboys and Aliens’ – two classic film genres in one - that registered on his highly tuned filmmaker’s radar. “I thought ‘there’s a really cool version of this film to be made if you get it right..’”

The project, based on a graphic novel by Scott Michael Rosenberg, had been languishing in development for a couple of years when screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci (Transformers, Star Trek) gave it a new take.

“And at that point Robert (Downey Jr.) was flirting with it and we were working together on Iron Man 2 so I kept hearing about this thing,” says Favreau.
“It was like when your friend dates a girl that you kind of like and it makes you even more curious about the girl – and then I got to marry the girl. And I read the writers’ first draft of the script and they got it right, they got the balance.
“They combined the two genres with enough irony and enough humour but the humour was not based on the characters winking at the audience. In trying to make the Western relevant, a lot of times people would sort of joke through it or comment on the genre. With this we play the Western totally straight and all of the fun comes from combining these two disparate elements.”

A scheduling clash meant that Downey Jr. was destined to lend his considerable talents to another film and Favreau, along with Orci and Kurtzman – who are also producing the film – set about honing the story as a straight down the line action packed drama that combines the classic Western with the alien invasion movie in a highly entertaining and original way.

The director also embarked on recruiting a stellar cast to help tell his story, with Daniel Craig playing The Stranger who stumbles into the hard-bitten town of Absolution wearing a metallic shackle on one wrist. He has no idea where he got it from, doesn’t know where he’s been and he can’t even remember his own name.

The tough, uncompromising Colonel Dolarhyde rules Absolution with a rod of iron. It’s a role that Harrison Ford was delighted to take on and one that Favreau feels the screen icon was destined to play.

“Because we’re so familiar with him now in heroic roles people forget that at the beginning of his career he was more of a rogue – maybe a loveable rogue who ended up doing the right thing, but a rogue.
“But if you remember who he was when we first saw him he played some guys who were in that grey area. And the thing is, with Cowboys and Aliens, you still love him even though he’s as bad as he is.”

Ford and Craig are a dream pairing, he says, playing two un-yielding characters who, eventually, will have to find a way to unite and fight a common enemy when alien marauders from the sky – the townsfolk call them demons – attack with brutal force seemingly out of nowhere.

“With Cowboys and Aliens, we needed to make both Harrison and Daniel’s characters strong and intimidating and then they have to deal with each other. It’s about them going back and forth, like two Silverbacks vying for who is going to run things. And that’s one of the themes of the film – in the end they have to work together to overcome untenable odds.”

Craig is, of course, best known for playing the very British James Bond but he was perfectly at home in the Western genre, says his director.

“I just kept thinking of Steve McQueen and that was kind of mind blowing. Everybody said ‘he’s so British’ and ‘he’s so James Bond...’ and you do think of him like that, but he puts that cowboy hat on and boom! (snaps fingers) He’s The Stranger.
“With those blue eyes, the chaps, the rugged face, he feels like a real man and you believe him totally in a Western setting. When we were casting we kept saying ‘this guy has lived a full life and yet doesn’t know his own past..’ and so you have to see that in his face.
“And if you put somebody else in that role, maybe in their 30s, and it wouldn’t feel right to me. You want somebody who is a little grizzled.”

In the middle of the highly combustible mix, there’s the elusive and beguiling Ella, a woman who seems to know much more about The Stranger’s past – and how he came to get shackled – than he does. She also knows that the mysterious gunslinger is the only hope they have of surviving against overwhelming odds.

Olivia Wilde plays Ella and Favreau was greatly impressed with the young actress’s horse riding skills and her willingness to tackle her own stunts.

“Olivia is very athletic and also an excellent rider. She competed when she was younger in English riding, so I don’t know if she did jumps but she definitely had equestrian training.
“We’re talking about a society girl here because kids in my neighbourhood certainly weren’t learning how to ride horses!” he laughs. “But Olivia was always game for everything. I think she was kind of competitive with the guys, she was like ‘let’s do it!’ Because the guys were doing it, ‘she’s like, I’ll do it too.’”

Legendary filmmakers Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard serve as executive producers on Cowboys and Aliens and provided a wealth of knowledge that Favreau happily tapped into.

“To have Steven and Ron there for Cowboys and Aliens was a fantastic resource, especially during the development of the script,” he says. “Neither were around for the shooting because they were off doing their own films but then to be able to bring them in during the editing was incredibly clarifying.
“We’re talking about two guys with so much experience, so many ideas and to be able to talk things through with them was incredible.”

Cowboys and Aliens was filmed on the rugged terrain of New Mexico – a perfect setting for the story but not the easiest location for the filmmakers.

“You know, God throws just as much as you can handle at you and I have to say in retrospect, I have no complaints. In the thick of things, those winds whip up, it gets scary and it’s hard on everybody - it’s hard on the cast, it’s hard on the crew with long days in high altitude and it just wears you down.
“But we handled it and came in under budget and then finished off the film on the lot, which was very nice. And I have to say it was really good to have a strong script going into it that had not been the experience on the last few films.

“The films were works in progress as we went along and the scripts kept evolving but this was one where everybody felt very good and signed off on it before we ever set out for New Mexico.
“And the fact that the writers are also the producers was extremely helpful because it wasn’t just another set of opinions, Bob and Alex are people who could actually make good on their ideas and write you pages and bring them in. That was great.”

Fittingly, there were plenty of nights when the cast and crew got together around the campfire at the end of a long, hard day, and kicked back. Favreau and Daniel Craig play the ukulele and several others brought their guitars and everyone else sang along.

“Actually, it started with Daniel who was learning to play the ukulele. We had a few parties and if they were during the day, they were at my house because I have kids and the pool and if they were at night they were at Daniel’s house because he had the Mexican food and the tequila,” he laughs.
“And on one of the first occasions we went to his house we busted out the ukuleles. I knew how to play a little bit and he had some songbooks and Keith Carradine would be singing – it was great.
“I think Bob Orci had a guitar and some of the crew members had them too. So there was a time when there were about five ukuleles on set. And we had a great time doing that. Actually, as a wrap gift, I got Daniel an electric ukulele.”

cowboays aliens attack
c 2011 Universal Studios / courtesy Getty Images / picture by Zade Rosenthal

JON FAVREAU Q&A:

When did you first hear the title ‘Cowboys and Aliens’ and what did you make of it?

I’d heard the title when the writers did their first draft and I thought ‘there’s a really cool version of this film to be made if you get it right..’ There are a lot of awful versions of this title as well (laughs). And at that point Robert (Downey Jr.) was flirting with it and we were working on Iron Man 2 so I kept hearing about this thing. It was kind of like when your friend dates a girl that you kind of like and it makes you even more curious about the girl – and then I got to marry the girl (laughs). And I read the writers’ first draft of the script and they got it right, they got the balance.

In what way?

They combined the two genres with enough irony and enough humour but the humour was not based on the characters winking at the audience. In trying to make the Western relevant, a lot of times people would sort of joke though it or comment on the genre. With this we play the Western totally straight and all of the fun comes from combining these two disparate elements.

The buzz on Cowboys and Aliens started when you showed some very early footage at Comic-Con last year. How important is it to get word of mouth building with that audience?

Yes, that was fun and they are an important part of the audience so you want them on your side and it was great that the footage got such a positive response. I don’t know how we are going to top that this year but we’ve got to do something – and we’re going to do something cool. We’ve got to do something that people haven’t seen before, so either we’ll go big or we won’t go.

I’ve just been talking to Olivia Wilde and she’s just been telling me about how you were yanking her off a horse in what sounds like a really cool stunt when the aliens lasso her. What was that like?

You’ve got to ask her (laughs).

Did you want her to do it or would you have been happy with her stunt double doing the scene?

Yeah, well we knew it was safe. We’d been doing it with the doubles and we’d done it with her double but we wanted to tie in a close up of Olivia, so we figured we’d do something a lot mellower and we had a mechanical horse that was on a trailer that we would pull, and we did that no problem. And of course you are like ‘well, we could go a little bit wider’ and ‘could we pull her a little further?’ And then the stunt man Tommy Harper would talk to her, and you know, Olivia is very athletic, and also an excellent rider. She competed when she was younger in English riding, so I don’t know if she did jumps but she definitely had equestrian training. We’re talking about a society girl here because kids in my neighbourhood certainly weren’t learning how to ride horses! (laughs). But Olivia was always game for everything. I think she was kind of competitive with the guys; she was like ‘let’s do it!’ Because the guys were doing it, ‘she’s like, I’ll do it too.’ And one of the guys who was doing it that day, was Brendan Wayne, who we hired originally to be one of the riders, but he was a good actor, we auditioned him, he’s actually John Wayne’s grandson. He was one of the guys who was doing the pull that day and Olivia was like, ‘I want to do it too..’ And so we swapped the mechanical horse for a real horse and she did it. That’s her in the trailer riding next to Daniel Craig and getting pulled off the horse.

How did the collaboration with Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard, who are executive producers on the movie, work?

You know, and they both have very different processes and they are both extremely deferential to one another, very polite. And what’s nice about the directing community is that it’s kind of unique. With writers, editors and sometimes actors, you are losing jobs to one another. You both get a call back and one guy gets it and one guy doesn’t. The directing community is not very competitive like that and directors are mostly very supportive of each other. You don’t really hear about it, but for every movie that I’ve done I’ve had great feedback from other directors. Like I’ve had Guillermo Del Toro in the editing room looking at the creature effects and giving advice on that and I showed Edgar Wright a rough cut of the film just a couple of weeks ago and he gave very good notes. Directors are always giving me very thoughtful notes – I spoke to J.J. Abrams in the middle of Iron Man, to get some lines from him. It’s a very supportive community. And Steven and Ron are very much like that - they are very supportive of other directors.

Why do you think that is? Is it because it’s a relatively small community and you can empathise with each other?

I think it is. Directors know how to offer constructive advice to each other. They know the perspective because they’ve done it. Often they know that what another director needs is support and reinforcement and not necessarily new ideas. If somebody asks my opinion about something I’ll happily offer it up. But a director doesn’t really stand to gain anything by getting his idea into somebody else’s movie. What you really stand to gain is by galvanizing that relationship and knowing that you did them a solid or they did you a solid, and this has been going on for a long time. I even hear stories from Steven about (Brian) DePalma and (George) Lucas and everybody – Francis (Ford Coppola) and they are all going to each other’s screenings. That’s just how they do it.

And so to have Steven and Ron there for Cowboys and Aliens was a fantastic resource, especially during the development of the script. Neither were around for the shooting because they were off doing their own films but then to be able to bring them in during the editing was incredibly clarifying. We’re talking about two guys with so much experience, so many ideas and to be able to talk things through with them was incredible. Actually, Steven’s is coming in again next week. He came at the beginning of the editorial process, he gave his thoughts, and now he’s coming at the end as we are buttoning it up. Steven is the head of a studio but he’s first and foremost a filmmaker and he has great ideas.

What was this one like to do? You’re filming in a rugged terrain in New Mexico with horses and stunts and big action scenes. How hard was it?

Well you know God throws just as much as you can handle at you and I have to say in retrospect, I have no complaints. In the thick of things, those winds whip up, it gets scary and it’s hard on everybody - it’s hard on the cast, it’s hard on the crew with long days in high altitude and it just wears you down. But we handled it and came in under budget and then finished off the film on the lot, which was very nice. And I have to say it was really good to have a strong script going into it that had not been the experience on the last few films. The films were works in progress as we went along and the scripts kept evolving but this was one where everybody felt very good and signed off on it before we ever set out for New Mexico. And the fact that the writers are also the producers was extremely helpful because it wasn’t just another set of opinions, Bob and Alex are people who could actually make good on their ideas and write you pages and bring them in. That was great.

Did you hang out together when you had time off in New Mexico? I’m hearing that you played a little ukulele around the campfire…

Yes, I do play and I did play when we were there. Actually, it started with Daniel who was learning to play the ukulele. We had a few parties and if they were during the day, they were at my house because I have kids and the pool and if they were at night they were at Daniel’s house because he had the Mexican food and the tequila (laughs). And on one of the first occasions we went to his house we busted out the ukuleles. I knew how to play a little bit and he had some songbooks and Keith Carradine would be singing – it was great. The next thing you know I bought a ukulele as a gift for our visual effects supervisor. I think Bob Orci had a guitar and some of the crew members had them too. So there was a time when there were about five ukuleles on set. And we had a great time doing that. Actually, as a wrap gift, I got Daniel an electric ukulele.

You’ve talked about the tone of the film. Would you have been interested in doing Cowboys and Aliens as a comedy?

I don’t know that it would have worked well. I read their script (when it was a comedy), and they are very gracious to say that I think I did have a lot of input, but the tracks were in the snow already. They already found the right way through it. And there were a few things that were inconsistent, where it got a little bit implausible, where it got a bit action-y, so I held some restraint there.

What was the key to getting the tone right, to blending two genres?

You never want to lose the human scale and I think there’s a language for Western action and there’s a language for big popcorn 2011 action that are slightly different so I tried to keep to that. But I was more of a disciplinarian as opposed to a visionary and I kept it consistent and with the way the movie opens up and with our great cast that was the way to go. If it had been Robert (Downey Jr) I wonder what that version would have been - it would have been a much more challenging film because he’s such a verbal, clever guy and I wonder if it would have felt more like Kevin Kline in Silverado, or a guy who’s using his mental ingenuity as opposed to his physicality like Daniel did.

Daniel brings a different approach?

Yes. Because with Daniel you evoke a different thing. I just kept thinking of Steve McQueen and that was kind of mind blowing. Everybody said ‘he’s so British’ and ‘he’s so James Bond..’ and you do think of him like that, but he puts that cowboy hat on and boom! (snaps fingers) He’s The Stranger. With those blue eyes, the chaps and the rugged face, he feels like a real man and you believe him totally in a Western setting. When we were casting we kept saying ‘this guy has lived a full life and yet doesn’t know his own past..’ and so you have to see that in his face. And if you put somebody in that role, maybe in their 30s, and it wouldn’t feel right to me. You want somebody who is a little grizzled.

And you have to have an actor that can match the gravitas of Harrison Ford there as well...

I think so. It has to feel like Butch and Sundance and it can’t feel like the dad and the son.

Were you also thinking that the film has to work as a Western, pure and simple, and that even if you didn’t introduce the aliens, it would still work as a stand-alone story?

Yeah and that was our goal. And that’s why we didn’t shoot in 3D. We wanted to keep it very traditional, we wanted movie stars who could play these rugged men, we wanted it as authentic in the period as it could be and then when the alien movie comes in we wanted to make sure that it was a very specific type of alien movie that was sort of that Spielberg era, 80s, pre CG. It’s about smoke, it’s about lights, it’s about imagination, it’s about tension and it’s about building that thing in your imagination that you eventually show pieces of as opposed to the pornography that CGI can be at times if not done properly.

How important is it that your leading actors do as much of the action as they possibly can?

Well, with Daniel for example, he brings his team with him and Daniel is very physical so he could do most of the stuff himself. He has a partner, a stunt guy, who trains him and helps to work out the choreography and he knows what Daniel can do well – he knows the jumps and the moves and how dexterous he is with a gun. As soon as Daniel got the part he had that gun in the holster and he was practising his draw, flipping the gun over, learning everything that he could. He’d say to me ‘is there a moment for this?’ And my feeling as a director is that if the actor is good at something in particular I’ll work with it. It was like when I found out that Zooey Deschannel is a great singer I added a number in Elf that wasn’t there before. And it’s the same thing with Olivia’s horse riding skills and Keith Carradine is an expert rider, too. So you use it. He wanted to ride so you build that in there. And with Daniel, those action scenes would have been entirely different it was a different actor there. With a different actor we would have had to hide him a little bit more or cut around him – with Daniel you get to do all of it. And he brings such intensity to it. In Cowboys and Aliens he’s every bit as intense as you’ve come to expect from the other films he’s done and now he’s got a cowboy hat on so here we go…(laughs).

We’ve been used to seeing Harrison Ford in a lot of heroic roles. But here, you cast him as a tough, un-compromising man who is not exactly sympathetic. What was the thinking with that?

Well if you remember when we first met Harrison, with roles like Han Solo, he’s shooting a bounty hunter under the table before the guy even fires at him. Even in Indiana Jones, there are some scenes where you don’t know whether he’s a good guy or a bad guy. People forget that because we’re so familiar with him now in heroic roles but in the beginning of his career he was more of a rogue – maybe a loveable rogue who ended up doing the right thing, but a rogue. He was rescuing the Princess for the cash and when he comes back at the end it’s a surprise because you think he’s selfish. And then, over his career, he becomes the President, Jack Ryan, the guy in Witness and he’s softened. But if you remember who he was when we first saw him and he played some guys who were in that grey area. And the thing is, with Cowboys and Aliens, you still love him even though he’s as bad as he is. It’s like Louie in Taxi. Do you remember that? Louie De Palma (played by Danny DeVito) said so many mean things but you still loved him. And with Cowboys and Aliens, we needed to make both Harrison and Daniel’s characters strong and intimidating and then they have to deal with each other. It’s about them going back and forth, like two Silverbacks vying for who is going to run things. And that’s one of the themes of the film – in the end they have to work together to overcome untenable odds.

They all have to unite to fight the aliens…

Yeah, that’s the thing.

You work on the premise too, that if we accept that aliens come to Earth – and movies have been doing that for decades – then they could come in the 19th century…

Exactly. The first UFO photo was a cigar shaped ship in the sky in 1872 in Arizona. And we drew inspiration from that.

Were you always confident that the two genres, Western and Sci-Fi, could be blended together successfully?

It’s like if you ever mix two songs together – you listen to one, you listen to the other, and you think ‘yeah, they could work well together..’ And it’s either great and they line up and make something even better or they sound like dishes breaking (laughs). But when they work well together – and I think this works great together – it becomes something really good and there’s an energy where both together become more interesting and that’s what happened with this. We had to lay them both together and really see what the film would become. And as the film unfolds you realise that it takes much less effort than you would think when you hear the title. I think the title draws attention to how different and original we are but it also elicits the worst fears of the audience of what is bad version of this movie is. But you know, I like that, because it gets people asking questions.

It provokes a reaction….

Yes, it does. And our job, over the next few months, is to say ‘take a look at our trailer, listen to what we’re saying in interviews, watch the footage’ and see what this movie really is. It’s something different and unique. And in a summer where everything is either a sequel or a re-boot or a remake or another superhero film, I think people are ready to take a chance at something where they might not know everything that is going to happen.

The tone is crucial. When you were filming did you give yourself the option of playing some scenes broader, perhaps with more comedy, so that you could decide finally in the editing room?

Not really, I love humour, so I’m always going for the funny when I can, but I never want it to be at the expense of the reality of the moment. And with this, there’s a lot of the tone set in the flashbacks. We see when Jake was captured. I think that the best that you can go for on the day is truth and logic and then you pair it down in the editing room. I mean, when you assemble a film like this you have 20, 30 per cent more footage than you are ever going to use and then it becomes about what’s the minimalist version of the storytelling. The decision-making is all about what you have to leave out. But tonally it was pretty square on right off the top.

Did you watch Westerns or Sci-Fi movies when you were growing up?

I was born in 1966 so I was around for the heyday of the alien movies. I remember seeing Close Encounters at the Ziegfeld (cinema) in New York with my Dad. I remember waiting in line to go and see Star Wars and that whole resurgence of the quality popcorn movie came with (George) Lucas and Steven Spielberg so it was a very interesting time to form your opinion about movies. So I connected more with Sci-Fi because the Western wasn’t really around in the post-Vietnam era in the same way. But then as I became a filmmaker you study the masters and you have to look at filmmakers like John Ford and you begin to see where all the archetypes come from. And the Western is a very American form. We don’t have a tremendously long history but the Western is a form that reflects our history. I have much more affection for the Western now because I think it’s a very subtle form. And here, with Cowboys and Aliens, I get to have my cake and eat it! (laughs).



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