Few actors in Hollywood history have achieved as mythic a status in our collective conscience as John Wayne. Remembered as the paragon of rugged American masculinity, Wayne traded blows with everyone from old west outlaws to Nazis. Of course, for all of his many legendary roles, John Wayne never crossed into the world of science-fiction. Now, however, thirty years after his death, it appears we will finally get to see the Duke in a sci-fi role.
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According to a story on The Houston Chronicle website, John Wayne’s final unreleased performance will be seen in an upcoming DVD entitled, Thunder Riders of the Golden West. The film, which was independently produced by Dave Burleson (Wayne’s stunt double and longtime friend), focuses on “cowboy truckers who hit the trail in search of $3 million worth of gold in the middle of an atomic bomb test.”
While I’m all for seeing John Wayne saddle up the horse for one more mosey around the desert, this movie has the potential to cause some controversy. For John Wayne purists, The Duke’s last movie was The Shootist, pure and simple. We’ve all seen how angry fans can get when their favorite deceased actors rise from the grave to shill products on TV (Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, and Mr. Wayne himself, just to name a few examples). So John Wayne saddling up for a sci-fi- themed western may just rub some fans of The Duke the wrong way.
On the other hand, it doesn’t seem like Burleson is looking to exploit John Wayne in any way. After all, they were friends for many years and Wayne doesn’t even play the lead in the film (that role went to Burleson himself). Rather, it looks like Burleson finally found the money to release his movie, and it just so happened to take him 25 years to do it.
I, for one, would be very interested to see how Thunder Riders turns out. What do you think? Does this sound like it has potential, or will you skip it to preserve your existing memories of John Wayne?
Source: Houston Chronicle via MTV
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17 Comments
I dont know.
Ambivalent about this.
I am not sure if I would see it in a theatre.
To be honest I’m not a Wayne fan, but my dad is a HUGE fan and would love this news.
I don’t see why John Wayne fans would be upset by this. It’s not as though they used CGI to create a new performance from him. It’s a legitimate performance that he gave before he died. Even if he sucks in it, I think any Wayne fan would love to see him in something new.
I’m a big fan of Duke and his films.
If this story is true then it should be interesting to see.
But I wouldn’t expect anything more than a bit part/cameo role.
Duke was known for helping his friends out and if this guy was a good friend, then it’s entirely possible that Duke made an appearance in the flick to help out his buddy.
Time will tell.
I think it’d be interesting to see, that’s for sure.
@joshR:
My thoughts exactly. An unseen performance of the Duke? It’s not as if it is stolen from another performance and CGI’ed into a film like a grotesque form of grave robbing!
I wish they would do the same thing (tastefully) to all the unseen footage of some of my favourite deceased actors/actresses or singers. Marylin Monroe was shooting a film when she died, with Dean Martin, and I wonder if James Dean has some treasure hidden in the archives?
It’s not macabre in any way to want to see screen greats like John Wayne in their last performance, in fact, I think it is honoring their status as film icons!
I don’t agree with CGI performances though. Thats just too goulish for my tastes.
They did that for Bruce Lee too… The result was pretty funny…
@KenJ, not being a ‘Bruce Lee’ action film fan, I am unfamiliar with that story. What did they do to Bruce Lee? CGI him?
No, this is WAY before the whole CGI age. He shot a movie, Game of Death, where he was inside of a pagota(sp?) and with every level he had to fight another opponent to eventually get to the top. They shot the fight scenes first, then he died. So they tried to fill in the back story and the parts between the fights and stuff, they used stock footage from other movies, and it was REALLY obvious, where when his back is turned, it’s not really him, then when he turns around, they will cut to a scene from another movie and the background will be completely different, lol. And in one scene, they pasted Bruce Lee’s face onto another actor to pretend it was him, and yes, it was REALLY REALLY obvious. It was like a non-moving photo of Bruce Lee’s face floating in front of another actor’s face, lol.
I think you should watch it just for the laughs…
LOL! I saw ‘The Crow’ with Brandon Lee, but the substitution didn’t seem to be as obvious.
What about ‘Body doubles’ that look nothing like the actor? eg: We see a ‘closeup’ and it’s obviously the Principal actor, then a long shot, and he’s grown three feet!
I know I’ve seen them,(bad body doubles) I just can’t think of the movie!
See if you can spot the difference between
and 
I’ve seen some body doubles that were much too buff or not buff enough, lol. That’s always kind of funny.
The best thing in the world would be if some big action star had a twin that was a stunt man, lol.
I think it would be pretty interesting to see this so long as it’s done well with respect to The Duke.
Agreed, this isn’t raising him up so much as releasing something he actually did. Also helps that is a friend of his and not some rich producer.
Those fill ins for Lee were obvious. Still, the plethora of movies made where they had lookalike stars was worse. Anything to try and get people watching.
@Ken J
Yeah, I remember watching Game of Death and laughing when they showed the actor (I think it was Billy Lo) with a picture of Lee’s face. The physique of Lo didn’t look anything like Lee’s (and whose did). I just tell people to fast forward to the pagoda fight scenes unless they want a good laugh. I think they also showed Lee in a hospital bed in that movie, after the character got shot. There have been people who said that was Lee’s greatest movie, at which point I said, “Did you not watch Enter the Dragon? Chinese Connection? Fists of Fury?”. I would have put Return of the Dragon in that list but it was kind of cheesy as heck.
I thought for sure there would be a Duke fan out there who would not like this news, but I guess I was wrong. Seems like most people are willing to give this movie a chance. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for it.
@Kahless
The Pagoda scenes in Game of Death are awesome. I love when Kareem Abdul Jabbar kicks Bruce Lee and leaves that massive footprint. Great stuff.
@Rob
Yes they were, and that’s probably why some people say it was his best film. Too bad the rest of the film is a joke.
My mum is a huge fan of John Wayne.She has a few of his movie but the one she didn’t like was The Searchers.
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