Trivia / Cowboys & Aliens

• Actor Allusion: Paul Dano passes the hat.
• All-Star Cast: Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, Sam Rockwell, Clancy Brown, Keith Carradine.
• Box Office Bomb: Budget, $163 million. Box office, $100,240,551 (domestic), $174,822,325 (worldwide).
• Creator Killer: The film put a nice dent in Jon Favreau's career, but he would redeem himself in the tentpole film industry with the remake of Walt Disney's Classic The Jungle Book (1967) in 5 years. In between those two films, he starred in and directed the low-budget Chef (2014), which was met with a positive reception from critics.
• Dueling-Stars Movie: Harrison Ford vs. Daniel Craig. Indiana Jones vs. James Bond. 80's Action Hero vs. 00's Action Hero. One can only wonder how cinema screens don't catch fire when those two guys are in the same shot.
• Executive Meddling: An averted example. DreamWorks SKG executives wanted the film to be shot in 3D, but Favreau refused since he wanted to shoot it in film and not be converted into 3D, and compared it to black-and-white films being colorized.
• Fake American: Daniel Craig is a Brit playing an American cowboy.
• Genre-Killer: Eventually became this to the sci-fi/fantasy western with The Lone Ranger (Disney almost canceled that movie when this one bombed) ^note  Ironically, the other side of DreamWorks was a beneficiary for that movie due to becoming copyright holders to the Lone Ranger series a year before that film tanked , sending it back to the grave that 1999's Wild Wild West dug for it.
• Playing Against Type:
  • Harrison Ford is a Small-Town Tyrant who rules the town with an iron fist.
  • Also Clancy Brown, normally a villain actor, playing a "good guy" in a doctor encountered early in the film. It's one of only several of these types of roles he's done, with Captain Black from Jackie Chan Adventures ^note (also Super Moose in the same series; this show also features a Shock and Awe character who is a villain, Tchang Zu the Thunder Demon, whose voice sounds like Clancy Brown's voice for Uka Uka somewhat; The Other Wiki credited the role to Frank Welker, but his name never showed up in the two episodes where Tchang Zu spoke) , Sergeant Zim in Starship Troopers and Rayden ^note  Another Shock and Awe character like Tchang Zu, but a hero this time. in Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm ^note  Also ironically, the lead actor from the Starship Troopers movie, Casper Van Dien, became Johnny Cage in the second season of Mortal Kombat: Legacy in 2013 being some of the few other good examples.
• Spared by the Cut: Most of the Spear Carrier posse members (mostly Dolarhyde ranch hands) decide to Screw This, I'm Outta Here offscreen after the aliens kill Meacham. In the extended version, an alien attacks their camp and kills them instead.
• Star-Derailing Role: The film did not do any good for actor Noah Ringer as a year before, he starred as Aang in The Last Airbender, the film adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender, which was disowned by longtime fans of the source material and the creators themselves. ^note  That movie's also a Worst Picture Golden Raspberry Award winner, the biggest career setback M. Night Shyamalan's ever received, a Stillborn movie trilogy, and dealt serious damage to the 3D movie, much to the dismay of the other DreamWorks run by Jeffrey Katzenberg, who ended their partnership with Paramount the year after Cowboys and Aliens hit theaters; it also helped ensure Viacom boss Philippe Dauman would exit Viacom on bad terms come 2016. As this film was a flop, he hasn't appeared in a film since.
• What Could Have Been: Jake Lonergan was originally written as a former Union army gunslinger named Zeke Jackson with Robert Downey Jr. playing the character. After Downey left, the character was rewritten after Daniel Craig was cast.

---