How Kurt Russell Secretly Directed Tombstone (& How Sylvester Stallone Helped)
In 2006 Kurt Russell gave an interview claiming he ghost directed classic Western Tombstone, and that Sylvester Stallone provided assistance.
- Kurt Russell secretly directed Tombstone, stepping in after the original director was fired, and worked closely with George P. Cosmatos via shot lists.
- Co-stars Sam Elliott and Val Kilmer have backed up Russell’s claim of ghost directing, praising his dedication and hard work on the film.
- Russell has the missing footage for Tombstone and laments the scenes that had to be removed, but reconstructing a director’s cut would require extensive work that he is currently not pursuing.
Here’s how Kurt Russell secretly directed Tombstone, and how Sylvester Stallone helped out. While Westerns had largely died out following the ’70s, the genre shows brief bursts of life now and again. One of those periods was the early ’90s, where Unforgiven, the Young Guns movies and Tombstone showed there was some blood left in the genre. The latter film celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2023, and it feels like appreciation for Tombstone has only grown over the years. From its incredible cast to its fantastic dialogue and thundering action sequences, it’s arguably the best film to cover Wyatt Earp’s life.
The film itself faced fierce competition from a rival biopic, which starred Kevin Costner. In fact, Costner tried to sabotage Tombstone by using his star power to convince major studios at the time not to distribute it; it was ultimately released via Disney/Buena Vista. Tombstone had other hurdles to face, including a much lower budget than Costner’s Wyatt Earp and the original director Kevin Jarre being fired a month into production after falling behind schedule. According to an in-depth interview star Russell gave to True West in 2006, this is when he was asked to step up and direct Tombstone himself.