Wild Wild West is a 1999 American steampunk Western comedy film directed by Barry Sonnenfeld from a screenplay by S. S. Wilson and Brent Maddock along with Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman, based on a story by Jim and John Thomas. Adapting the 1960s television series The Wild Wild West by Michael Garrison, the film respectively stars Will Smith and Kevin Kline (in a dual role) as Jim West and Artemus Gordon, two government agents in the American Old West who attempt to protect President Ulysses S. Grant and the United States from a mad scientist bent on revenge for losing the American Civil War. Kenneth Branagh, Salma Hayek and Ted Levine also appear in supporting roles.
Development for the film began in 1992, when Warner Bros. optioned the rights to the television series, and hired Richard Donner and Shane Black to respectively direct and script the film, with Mel Gibson in the role of Jim West. After Donner and Gibson left the project to work on Maverick in 1994, Sonnenfeld and Smith, after completing work on Men in Black for Columbia Pictures, came aboard the film in February 1997, with principal photography beginning the following year in April. The film's extensive visual effects were helmed by Eric Brevig at Industrial Light & Magic. The film's soundtrack contains the theme song of the same name, written and performed by Smith, as well as the score, composed by Western film score veteran Elmer Bernstein.
Released theatrically in the United States on June 30, 1999 and produced on a $170 million budget (making it one of the most expensive films ever made when adjusting for inflation at the time of its release), Wild Wild West was a critical and commercial failure, grossing only $113.8 million domestically and $108.3 million overseas for a worldwide total of $222.1 million. The film was nominated for eight Razzies and won five at the 20th Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Picture.
Plot
Four years after the end of the American Civil War in 1869, U.S. Army Captain James T. "Jim" West and U.S. Marshal Artemus Gordon hunt for ex-Confederate General "Bloodbath" McGrath, who is seemingly responsible for a massacre in New Liberty that killed West's parents. U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant informs the two about the disappearances of America's key scientists and a treasonous plot by McGrath, and tasks them with finding the scientists before he inaugurates the first transcontinental railroad.
Aboard their train The Wanderer, West and Gordon examine the severed head of MIT scientist Thaddeus Morton, finding a clue that leads them to Dr. Arliss Loveless, a legless ex-Confederate soldier and scientist. Infiltrating Loveless's party, the duo rescue a woman named Rita Escobar, who asks for their help in rescuing her father Guillermo Escobar, who is one of the kidnapped scientists. Loveless demonstrates his steam-powered tank by using McGrath's soldiers as target practice, before shooting and leaving McGrath for dead for previously surrendering at Appomattox. West, Gordon and Rita find McGrath, who reveals he was framed by Loveless for the New Liberty massacre before dying. The trio pursue Loveless on The Wanderer, only to discover Loveless is following them on an artillery train. West disables Loveless's train before Rita accidentally incapacitates West, Gordon and herself with sleeping gas disguised as billiard balls.
West and Gordon wake up as Loveless pulls away in The Wanderer while taking Rita hostage, intending to capture Grant at the golden spike ceremony and leaving West and Gordon in a deadly trap. After narrowly escaping the trap, the duo stumble across Loveless's private railroad leading to his industrial complex hidden in Spider Canyon, where they witness Loveless's ultimate weapon, a gigantic mechanical spider with nitroglycerin cannons. At the ceremony, Loveless captures Grant and a disguised Gordon while West gets shot by one of Loveless's henchwomen upon being caught infiltrating the spider.
At his complex, Loveless reveals his plan to dissolve the United States and divide the territory among Great Britain, France, Spain, Mexico, the Native American people and Loveless himself. When Grant refuses to surrender, Loveless orders Gordon's execution before West, having survived thanks to Gordon's impermeable bulletproof vest, appears in disguise as a belly dancer and distracts Loveless, allowing Gordon to free the captives. Loveless then escapes while taking Grant with him, and destroys a town to force Grant to surrender. Gordon, describing Bernoulli's principle, uses his flying bicycle to transport him and West to the spider, where West battles its henchmen before confronting Loveless himself. As the spider approaches a cliff, Loveless shoots West with a concealed gun, but instead hits the spider's control pipes, halting it abruptly at the edge of the canyon. West and Loveless fall from the spider, but West survives by catching a chain dangling from the machinery.
Grant designates West and Gordon as the first agents of his new Secret Service. After Grant departs on The Wanderer, West and Gordon attempt to court Rita, who reveals Guillermo is actually her husband. West and Gordon ride into the sunset on the spider.
Cast
Production Development Variety first reported in January 1992 that Warner Bros. Pictures had optioned the film rights to Michael Garrison's television show The Wild Wild West and hired Richard Donner, who previously directed three episodes of the original series, to direct a film adaptation written by Shane Black, with Mel Gibson in the role of Jim West. However, Donner and Gibson left the project to work on a film adaptation of Maverick (another film based on a Western television series) in 1994. The project continued in the development stage, with Tom Cruise rumored for the lead in 1995. Cruise instead starred in a film adaptation of Mission: Impossible the following year.
Discussions with Will Smith and Barry Sonnenfeld began in February 1997 after the two had wrapped up production on Men in Black for Columbia Pictures the same year. Smith declined to play the lead role of Neo in The Matrix in favor of Wild Wild West, which he later regretted. Warner Bros. pursued George Clooney to co-star in the film as Artemus Gordon, with Kevin Kline, Matthew McConaughey and Johnny Depp also in contention for the role while Short Circuit and Tremors screenwriters S. S. Wilson and Brent Maddock were hired by the studio to script the film between April and May 1997. Clooney signed on the following August after dropping out of Jack Frost, while Wilson and Maddock's script was rewritten by the writing team of Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman. However, in December 1997, Clooney was replaced by Kline in the role of Gordon after an agreement with Sonnenfeld: "Ultimately, we all decided that rather than damage this project trying to retrofit the role for me, it was better to step aside and let them get someone else."
Writing The film featured several significant changes from the television series. For instance, Dr. Loveless, as portrayed by Kenneth Branagh in the film, went from a dwarf to a legless man confined in a steam-powered wheelchair similar to that employed by the villain in the episode "The Night of the Brain"; his first name was also changed from Miguelito to Arliss, and he was given the motive of a Southerner who sought the defeat of the North after the Civil War. Kevin Kline plays Artemus Gordon in the film, whose character is similar to the original show's version of him portrayed by Ross Martin, except that he is much more egotistical than Jim West. The film depicted Kline's Gordon creating more bizarre, humorous and implausible inventions than those created by Martin's Gordon in the original series, as well as having an aggressive rivalry with West, unlike in the series where he and West had a very close friendship and trusted each other with their lives. While Gordon did indeed impersonate Grant in three episodes of the series ("The Night of the Steel Assassin", "The Night of the Colonel's Ghost" and "The Night of the Big Blackmail"), they were not played by the same actor. Additionally, West was originally portrayed by Robert Conrad, a Caucasian rather than an African American, which serves as a critical plot point as West's parents were among the victims of Loveless's massacre at New Liberty.
In a 2002 Q&A event on An Evening with Kevin Smith, filmmaker Kevin Smith talked about working as a writer on a fifth Superman film in 1997 titled Superman Lives, revealing that producer Jon Peters requested, among other things, that Superman fight a gigantic spider in the third act. After Batman director Tim Burton came onboard the project, Smith's script was scrapped and Warner Bros. later halted production on Superman Lives in 1998, though Wild Wild West, which Peters produced alongside Sonnenfeld, featured a giant mechanical spider that Dr. Loveless takes control of. Neil Gaiman also revealed that Peters insisted a giant mechanical spider be included in a proposed film adaptation of The Sandman.
Filming
Principal photography was set to begin in January 1998, but was pushed three months later to April 22, 1998. The interior sequences on the trains of both Artemus Gordon and Dr. Loveless were shot on sets at Warner Bros. Studios Burbank, while the exterior sequences were shot in Idaho on the Camas Prairie Railroad. The Wanderer in the film is portrayed by the Baltimore & Ohio 4–4–0 No. 25, one of the oldest operating steam locomotives in the U.S. Built in 1856 at the Mason Machine Works in Taunton, Massachusetts, it was later renamed The William Mason in honor of its manufacturer. During preproduction, the engine was sent to the steam shops at the Strasburg Rail Road for restoration and repainting. The locomotive is brought out for the B&O Train Museum in Baltimore's "Steam Days". Both the William Mason and the Inyo, which was the locomotive used in the original television series, previously appeared in the 1956 Disney film The Great Locomotive Chase.
Much of the Wild West footage was shot around Santa Fe, New Mexico, particularly at the Western town film set at the Cook Movie Ranch (now Cerro Pelon Ranch), which was previously used for the 1985 film Silverado. During the shooting of a sequence involving stunts and pyrotechnics, a planned building fire grew out of control and quickly overwhelmed the local fire crews that were standing by. Much of the town was destroyed before the fire was contained. In the scene where Loveless' spider attacks the town, a chimney reading "Kasdan Iron Monger" is briefly shown as a homage to Silverado director Lawrence Kasdan.
Music The orchestral film score, including its main theme, was composed and conducted by Elmer Bernstein, a veteran of many Western film scores such as The Magnificent Seven. The score mainly follows the Western genre's symphonic tradition, while at times also acknowledging the film's anachronistic playfulness by employing a more contemporary music style with notable rock percussion and electronic organ. The score also briefly incorporates Richard Markowitz's theme from the original television series in one cue, which was uncredited in the film and not included on the score's album; ironically, this was one of the film's few elements that were faithful to the series, which also did not credit Markowitz for the theme. Additional parts of the score were composed by Bernstein's son Peter, while his daughter Emilie served as one of the orchestrators and producers.