Clint Eastwood is the undisputed master of the best Westerns so, if he really likes a script, you know it must have been a really good cowboy adventure.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that Clint Eastwood has spent his whole career drowning in scripts with the potential to join the ranks of the best Westerns. However, according to the man himself, it wasn’t until 1976 that he came across a screenplay that really got him excited.
By the time he directed The Outlaw Josey Wales, Eastwood was cemented as one of the best actors in the genre, with many of the best Clint Eastwood movies firmly established by then – including his famed ‘Dollars Trilogy’ of Spaghetti Westerns.
But it was Phil Kaufman and Sonia Chernus’ script for Josey Wales that truly impressed Eastwood, and he still has a lot of fondness for it as one of his best movies.
“When people stop me in the street, it tends to be about Josey Wales. They seem to like that one. I rented it recently, it still holds up,” Eastwood told Empire.
He added: “The Spaghetti Westerns had a very stylish feel to them, and caused some attention and certainly go me started, but Josey Wales was the first script I really liked.”
Eastwood said he is still “fond” of the movie, adding: “There was stylishness in it too, you felt anything could happen.”
On its release in 1976, The Outlaw Josey Wales earned just under 10 times its budget at the box office, becoming a major commercial success. A decade later, sequel movie The Return of Josey Wales was unveiled, without Eastwood this time.
There’s no denying that Clint Eastwood is a master of the Western and, if he says a movie is one of his best, it’s definitely worth listening. We’ve got plenty more from him, including the Western he regrets making and why he once treated Tom Hanks like a horse.