Warning! Potential spoilers ahead for Cry Macho

If it follows the original novel, upcoming western Cry Macho may have a similiar ending to another famous Clint Eastwood western. Eastwood has appeared in a lot of different genres over the years, from comedies like Any Which Way But Loose - still his most successful film - to romantic dramas like The Bridges of Madison County or even slashers like Play Misty For Me. Despite his successes elsewhere, his screen image is still closely defined by the western genre.

After years of struggling as a working actor, he became a movie star thanks to Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy in the 1960s, where he played the iconic Man with no Name. In the decades that followed, he starred in and helmed several classics of the genre, ranging from High Plains Drifter to Pale Rider or the acclaimed Unforgiven. This 1992 deconstruction of the genre's tropes is still considered one of the artistic highlights of his career, and Eastwood essentially retired from westerns after making it. He's set to make a comeback with Cry Macho, a 1970s set neo-western where his washed-up rodeo star is tasked by his sleazy boss to kidnap his Mexican son Rafo (Eduardo Minett) and bring him to Texas.

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Cry Macho is a project that has circled Hollywood for over fifty years, with everyone from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Pierce Brosnan being linked at different times. Eastwood himself was even attached to a version in the late '80s, though he departed to make Dirty Harry sequel The Dead Pool instead. Judging by the trailer, Cry Macho will follow the novel closely, and may even include the original ending. In the Cry Macho book, Mike provides a distraction to the police to help Rafo escape, which results in him suffering a gunshot wound. The book ends as the wounded Mike plans to reunite with Rafo once again, which recalls the finale of Eastwood's own The Outlaw Josey Wales.

Clint Eastwood Returns To Western Roots In New Cry Macho Image

This 1976 western saw Eastwood - who also directed - as an outlaw seeking revenge for the murder of his family during the American Civil War. The Outlaw Josey Wales also sees the character form something of a makeshift family along the way, including a friendship with Chief Dan George's Lone Watie. The movie ends with Wales claiming revenge on the man responsible for the slaughter of his wife and son, before being confronted by former friend Fletcher (John Vernon, Dirty Harry). After being tasked with hunting him down, Fletcher decides to let him go, and in the final scene they share, he can see Wales is bleeding after being possibly mortally wounded in the final showdown. Wales then mounts his horse and rides off, either to die or reunite with his new family.

The Outlaw Josey Wales is more of a traditional western - despite subverting many elements of the genre - than Cry Macho, but the two endings have parallels. There's an ambiguity to Wales' fate in the movie, and while the wound Mike suffers in the Cry Macho novel is unlikely to prove fatal, the character in the movie will be much older and thus may not survive his attempt to reunite with Rafo. Eastwood's Cry Macho is likely to serve as something of an epilogue to his legacy as a western icon, and a finale that sees him wounded but determined to reconnect with his surrogate son no matter what may prove an immensely moving image.

Of course, the Cry Macho movie could have a completely different ending to the book. The Outlaw Josey Wales isn't the only Eastwood movie where his character rides off to an unknown fate either - there's also Pale Rider, for one - but if Cry Macho does carry over the book's finale, it feels like there's a strong thematic link between the two.

Next: Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry Franchise, Ranked