Before shared universes were really a thing and there were machines that cranked out comic book movies with precision in order to serve the greater overall brand, movie studios were still trying to grab hold of something that was once popular or interesting on the page and turn it into a big-screen success that might be capable of shouldering a franchise. Along the way, we found a few hits, but there were plenty of misses – very bad misses – that were a by-product of throwing all of these comic properties at the wall and seeing what might stick.
JONAH HEX was one such miss. Based on a scarred character with a surly personality who still has the honor to defend the innocent, JONAH HEX was a Warner Bros. vehicle that they hoped would be the start of something great, riding the rise of Josh Brolin to Franchise-ville. It didn’t turn out that way at all. In fact, if you listen closely to Brolin’s recent interview with the Nerdist Podcast, he’ll be very frank with what a disaster that picture was.
Oh, JONAH HEX, hated it. Hated it. The experience of making it — that would have been a better movie based on what we did. As opposed to what ended up happening to it, which is going back and reshooting 66 pages in 12 days and that being… Listen, I understand it’s financiers, you’re trying to save their money and it becomes a financial thing… I remember when I was talking to Warner Bros. about doing that movie, HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER is what I put on the TV, I said, ‘That’s what I wanna do.’ I would do that movie still ‘cause that’s the version of that movie that would have been successful, for sure. And it didn’t need to cost anything more than $8-10 million.
I guess you could say he’s not a fan of JONAH HEX nor will you find any soft spot in his heart for the flick. The same can be said for anyone who’s given up their time to watch it, so I guess that gives us all something in common with Josh Brolin from now until forever.