“Harrison Ford glowered” begins this New York Times profile, and while the story that follows could easily be about anything from an unusually long Starbucks line to a ladybug alighting on a frond dipped in morning dew, the object of Ford’s muted rage this time could well be the movie audience “cracking up” at the Cowboys & Aliens trailer. It seems that, despite director Jon Favreau’s intentions to make a Sergio Leone or John Ford-style Western crossed with Alien or Predator—and a preview that never makes so much as a wink—many people seem to think the film will be a Men In Black-style comedy or similarly frothy genre exercise, based solely on the fact that it boasts the title Cowboys & Aliens and features Daniel Craig saving the Wild West with a laser-bracelet. As a result, Universal and Favreau are now making concerted efforts to market the film as “deadly serious,” and persuade everyone that it’s “a tough-minded adventure on the order of Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven—with aliens,” which certainly doesn’t sound silly at all. Anyway, easy solution: Harrison Ford, door-to-door scowling.
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