It’s become gospel that there is no shortage of cribbed thinking and conservative rehashing going on in Hollywood these days. And now it seems the trend is stretching into the slightly revitalized western genre with CBS Films’ development of a feature film based on the old “Gunsmoke” television series.
The film recently landed writer Gregory Poirier (he of “Rosewood” and “National Treasure: Book of Secrets”), but as I read through Boris Kit and Stephen Zeitchik’s Risky Biz Blog story at The Hollywood Reporter, I kept wondering why Hollywood doesn’t take the next step here and just revamp the property as a full-blown series once again.
“Gunsmoke” was filmed at the Melody Ranch Motion Picture Studio up in Newhall, right outside of Santa Clarita. I’ve been there a couple of times and the Veluzat brothers, Renaud and Andre, who own the property, are stand-up guys who get a lot of business out of their old town set. But not many westerns are going through there anymore, beyond the occasional Hallmark Channel entry. The last time things were booming was back in the “Deadwood” days.