Steven Spielberg says he's developing a Western that has "eluded him for years," describing it as "kick ass" with "no stereotypes." For film nerds like myself, this is huge news.
Here's why: Spielberg hasn't made a true Western since his early television days. Sure, he's flirted with the genre—War Horse had some Western DNA, Indiana Jones borrowed liberally from Western iconography—but he's never committed to making a full-throated, spurs-and-saddles Western.
And he's had plenty of opportunities. Hollywood has been trying to make the Western work again for decades, with mixed results. The Coens did it. Quentin Tarantino did it (twice). Taylor Sheridan has built an entire empire on neo-Western mythology. But the genre remains commercially risky, which is probably why even Spielberg has hesitated.
The "no stereotypes" comment is intriguing. The Western genre is built on stereotypes—the stoic gunslinger, the noble savage, the civilizing schoolmarm. Spielberg presumably wants to honor the genre's visual language while subverting its more problematic tropes. That's a difficult balance, but if anyone can pull it off, it's him.
He's also coming to the genre at an interesting moment. We're experiencing what you might call a critical renaissance of the Western—The Power of the Dog, News of the World, The Harder They Fall—but audiences aren't exactly rushing to theaters for them. If anyone can make the Western commercially viable again, it's Spielberg. His name still carries weight at the box office in ways that most directors can only dream of.
The fact that this project has "eluded" him for years suggests he's been wrestling with how to approach it. Spielberg doesn't make movies lightly anymore. Every project is carefully considered, meticulously crafted. If he's finally ready to pull the trigger (pun intended) on his Western, it means he's figured something out.
