Westerns making a comeback in Hollywood?

Looks great, jdm. Thank you for passing this on to all of us. Just what we wanted to hear! Puma

YeeHaw!! That's for sure. Thanks for sharing

Good stuff!

Obviously producers have been keeping an eye on the Western SYW, seen it start to move and thought 'Time for a Western revival!'

Even if said series are rubbish, this can only be a good thing for the genre as a whole.

Thanks for the article! That's a great thing for any western writer to hear.

To be honest, id be more happy if there was a resurgence among publishers.

And I'm not really a fan of modern westerns. They just don't have the charm of the old ones with john wayne, jimmy stewart and the like.

Shadow_Ferret said:

To be honest, id be more happy if there was a resurgence among publishers.

Click to expand...

I reckons that one must lead to the other. That media machine does tend to feed on itself.

BTW, love to see you join in the prompts or post some stuff in Western SYW, SF. The more writers writing, the more chance publishers -- regardless of TV -- will take interest.

Shadow_Ferret said:

And I'm not really a fan of modern westerns. They just don't have the charm of the old ones with john wayne, jimmy stewart and the like.

Click to expand...

I think you hit the nail on the head there with the old/new tension being all about charm. Kinda like why the new Star Wars aren't as good -- no Han Solo charm. Though saying that, I think a few of the Ford/Wayne/Stewart films that, whilst charming, are also pretty dark and disturbing. I've been a thinking about a monthly film/book discussion thread. Might be a good thing to expose the newer crowd to the classic and expose the older crowd to the newer ones and try and find the charm or the ugliness in both of them.*

P.s, if you want Western charm, have a read of some of Puma's stuff in SYW. Got it in bucket loads.

*The films, I mean, not the younger or older crowd.

Charm in Puma's stuff? And bucketloads? I'm blushing, Harry.

Talking about old westerns, when I was a kid I absolutely loved Hopalong Cassidy - ate up every show of his on TV, listened to him on the radio, had a note sent home from the principal at school telling my parents I could NOT wear my cowboy boots to school. You get the picture. A couple years ago I got a dvd with some of the old Hoppie films on it. I was almost embarrassed - he was a dandy, not at all the tough dispenser of law and order I remembered. (And he wasn't even one of the singing cowboys!) Puma

Puma said:

Charm in Puma's stuff? And bucketloads? I'm blushing, Harry.

Click to expand...

Well, charm with an edge -- but still charming.

Puma said:

Talking about old westerns, when I was a kid I absolutely loved Hopalong Cassidy - ate up every show of his on TV, listened to him on the radio, had a note sent home from the principal at school telling my parents I could NOT wear my cowboy boots to school. You get the picture. A couple years ago I got a dvd with some of the old Hoppie films on it. I was almost embarrassed - he was a dandy, not at all the tough dispenser of law and order I remembered. (And he wasn't even one of the singing cowboys!) Puma

Click to expand...

Nice one , Puma. Unfortunatley I can't give a Western equivalent to this story -- or can I?

I used to think Leroy out of Fame (pretty west for someone who lives in England) was the toughest son-of-a-gun who ever donned dancing tights.

On reflection (caused by contemporary satellite channel repeat) I realised that this character was not a traditional tough-tough guy. Still, perhaps like old Hopalong, there was a toughness in what he represented.

Definitely be interesting to see what type and 'toughness' of character the touted new westerns television series create. Will they be archetypes, classical, modern or representations of the times we are living in now?

Look forward to seeing how the networks handle it.

I didn't have a chance earlier to actually look at the link, but really, some of those seem like they might be worth a watch or two.

Hangtown, as Tombstone meets Castle sounds interesting. So does Gateway and The Frontier.

One thing noticeable in its absence: no retreads. Maybe that'll come if a few of these become successful. I think some good ones to redo might be Wagon Train or Rawhide. Life on a drive provides for endless possibilities.

HarryHoskins said:

BTW, love to see you join in the prompts or post some stuff in Western SYW, SF. The more writers writing, the more chance publishers -- regardless of TV -- will take interest.

Click to expand...

At the moment, I have nothing. I'm still transcribing my WIP from NANO last year to the computer. Maybe once that's done I'll put up a chapter or two.

And I'm not a prompt writer. I really admire writers who can work from prompts or themes and put stuff in anthologies on whatever the topic is about. I've never been able to do that. I can only write what pops into my head and writing on cue like that has always escaped me.

I'm glad to hear you say that, ShadowFerret. That's one of the reasons I've campaigned so hard for general topics. I think it's very difficult to write to a specific topic or theme. I've tried writing pieces for a couple contests that had somewhat restrictive requirements and found it extremely difficult. My imagination needs some room to wander. Puma