Is the Western Genre dead?

The western Genre is a fun genre that's endured for a while. But now a days, it's starting to loose steam.

For every good Modern Western like True Grit, Rango, and Django Unchained, we get a bunch of shitty ones like Wild Wild West, Jonah Hex, and The Lone Ranger.

What do you guys think?

Note: This is strictly in the sense of movies. The Western Genre in Video Games seems to be just fine with the likes of Call of Juarez, Red Dead, and GUN.

That list of busts should add Lone Ranger. It is bombing HARD.

They should have added Heaven's Gate if anything. The Lone Ranger was a box-office bomb, but that's nothing compare to the disaster known as Heaven's Gate.

In fairness to Heaven's Gate though, I highly doubt The Lone Ranger will have a cult following.

Anyway, it's no longer the era of the Westerns. Adventure serials were huge at one point, then it was film noir along with Westerns, then it was the big stupid actioners of the 80s, now it's superhero movies. Much like how video games have the flavor of the week (platformers, shooters, etc.), the big moneymaking genre changes as time goes on. It may be a little while, but we'll be over superhero flicks at some point too.

I dunno. It may be a very LONG while until superhero films start to lose popularity. Even after Robert Downey, Jr. leaves, Marvel will probably be force to add Spider-Man and Wolverine into The Avengers roster, which will make a shit load of money. And Justice League will always have the most ironic characters of all time, Superman and Batman. Not to mention, there are millions of comic books stories out there. So Hollywood will never run out of ideas with comic book movies.

Westerns on the other hand, never make that much money to being with. Which is why big budget and westerns don't mix.

Westerns made a lot of money at the box office. All of the ones on your charts are very modern Westerns, after the golden age of the genre with stars like John Wayne. Westerns lasted much longer in the collective public mind than superhero films will.

@Jack I'm calling it now. When CBM's die because of oversaturation, video game movies will take over!

I would kill for a good Jonah Hex that is actually about the comic


Anyways the order for me is
1. Ninjas/Samurai
2. Knight's and Dragons n Magic N Shit
3. Cowboys

Jack the Spectre wrote:

Westerns made a lot of money at the box office. All of the ones on your charts are very modern Westerns, after the golden age of the genre with stars like John Wayne. Westerns lasted much longer in the collective public mind than superhero films will.

Well considering the budget yeah. But comic book movies make billions at the box-office.

Nah. Like every genre there are good ones and shit ones.

Good modern ones:

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Lawless (if that counts), Brokeback Mountain (if that counts), True Grit (not seen though), Django Unchained, etc

Has anyone here even seen 3:10 to Yuma? That was also a pretty good western as well.

True Grit might be one of the few remakes that surpass the original Classic. I absolutely loved it, but the ending was quite stupid, to say the least.

Well of course. The original had Justin Bieber.

Mecha wrote:

Jack the Spectre wrote:

Westerns made a lot of money at the box office. All of the ones on your charts are very modern Westerns, after the golden age of the genre with stars like John Wayne. Westerns lasted much longer in the collective public mind than superhero films will.

Well considering the budget yeah. But comic book movies make billions at the box-office.

They do, but Westerns had proportional success against the competition, especially when adjusting for inflation. When adjusting for inflation, not a single comic book movie is in the top ten highest-grossing, so using the unadjusted numbers doesn't always yield the best results. That's why you've gotta look at the older Westerns to see how they hold up against the other films of their time.