‘Mute’ Director Duncan Jones Wants to Make a Western

Netflix enabled Duncan Jones to finally make his passion project, Mute. Now the director is thinking about the future. In a new interview, the filmmaker expressed interest in helming a Western, but also cautions that getting financing for a Western these days isn’t easy. Maybe Netflix can help him out again? Are you ready for a Duncan Jones Western?

I didn’t really care for Mute, but I’m still eager to see what Duncan Jones does next. Mute and Warcraft may have been missteps, but Moon and Source Code both prove Jones is a talented, creative filmmaker with vision. So far, Jones has only made films with a sci-fi angle, but he’d also like to dabble in a new genre. Specifically: Westerns. Speaking with Geek Tyrant, Jones revealed his Western dreams:

“I know it sounds kind of trite but I want to do a Western. I really want to do Western but it’s really, really hard to get Westerns off the ground. It’s actually less hard to get them off the ground than to get audiences to go see them. Right now people don’t want to watch Westerns, its really really hard to get a financially successful Western.”

Jones would know more than I do about getting financing for films, so I’m sure he’s right about Westerns being a hard-sell for studios. Still, there are indie Westerns now and then – A24 released The Ballad of Lefty Brown last year, for example. Perhaps the answer is the re-package the Western as something else. I think the case could be made for James Mangold’s Logan as a Western, but the mixes its Western attitudes with that of a (more profitable) superhero movie. Then there’s HBO’s hit Westworld, which blends Western themes with science fiction.

That said, if Jones wants to make a straight-up Western, maybe he can turn to Netflix again? The filmmaker expressed gratitude in the past for the way the streaming platform enabled him to finally make Mute after struggling to get it made for nearly 12 years. “Netflix, these crazy new kids on the block, had this totally crazy philosophy on film making straight out of the 70s,” the filmmaker said. “Don’t make 4 quad ‘please everyone homogenous blobs! Make films [filmmakers] are passionate about & let the audience find them!”

Whatever Jones wants to do next, I’ll be there for it. His Moon and Source Code work alone has guaranteed that I’ll give any film he makes a chance. And a Duncan Jones-directed Western sounds pretty darn cool to me.

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