Cowboys & Aliens is a 2011 American science fiction Western film directed by Jon Favreau and starring Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, and Olivia Wilde. The film is based on the 2006 graphic novel of the same name created by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg. The main plot revolves around an amnesiac outlaw (Craig), a wealthy cattleman (Ford), and a mysterious traveler (Wilde) who must ally to save a group of townspeople abducted by aliens. The screenplay was written by Damon Lindelof, Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Mark Fergus, and Hawk Ostby, based on a story by the latter two along with Steve Oedekerk. The film was produced by Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Kurtzman, Lindelof, Orci, and Rosenberg, with Steven Spielberg serving as executive producer.

The project began development in 1997, when Universal Pictures and DreamWorks bought film rights to a concept pitched by Rosenberg, former president at Malibu Comics, which he described as a graphic novel in development. After the graphic novel was published in 2006, development on the film was begun again, and Favreau signed on as director in September 2009. On a budget of $163 million, filming for Cowboys & Aliens began in June 2010, in New Mexico and California. Despite studio pressure to release the film in 3-D, Favreau chose to film traditionally and in anamorphic format (widescreen picture on standard 35 mm film) to further a "classic movie feel".^[4] Measures were taken to maintain a serious Western element despite the film's "inherently comic" title and premise.^[5] The film's aliens were designed to be "cool and captivating",^[6] with some details, such as a fungus that grows on their wounds, created to depict the creatures as frontiersmen facing adversity in an unfamiliar place.

Cowboys & Aliens premiered at the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con and was released theatrically in the United States and Canada on July 29, 2011. The film, though having grossed its budget back, is considered to be a financial disappointment, taking $174.8 million in box office receipts on a $163 million budget. Cowboys & Aliens received mixed reviews, with critics generally praising its acting but critical of its blend of the Western and science fiction genres.

After its release, a lawsuit was filed against those involved in the development of the film by Steven John Busti, who claimed that the film infringed the copyright of his own similarly themed work written in 1994.

Plot[link]

In 1873, Arizona Territory, an unnamed loner (Daniel Craig) wakes up in the desert injured, with no memory and with a strange metal shackle on his wrist. After killing three drifters who try to rob him, he takes their clothes, weapons and a horse. He wanders into the small town of Absolution, where the local preacher, Meacham (Clancy Brown), treats his wound. After the stranger subdues Percy Dolarhyde (Paul Dano), a volatile drunk who has been terrorizing the town, Sheriff Taggart (Keith Carradine) recognizes the stranger as Jake Lonergan, a wanted outlaw, and attempts to arrest him. Jake beats up the posse sent to take him in and nearly escapes, but a mysterious woman named Ella Swenson (Olivia Wilde) knocks him out.

Percy's father, Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), a wealthy and ruthless cattleman, arrives with his men and demands that Percy be released. He sees Jake and also demands he be released to him, since Jake was the one who stole Dolarhyde's gold. During the standoff, alien craft begin attacking the town. Percy, the sheriff and many other townsfolk are grabbed by long, whip-like feelers hanging from the bottom of the alien ships and are abducted. Jake's shackle unfolds and becomes a weapon, shooting down one of the ships with a single shot, ending the attack.

Dolarhyde, Ella, and other townsfolk form a posse to track an injured alien that escaped from the downed ship. Jake, meanwhile, travels to an abandoned cabin, and in a flashback, recalls returning there with the gold just before he and a woman, Alice (Abigail Spencer), were abducted by the aliens. His memories returning, Jake joins up with the posse. During the night, while they camp in an upside down paddlewheel steamboat, the alien they were tracking kills Meacham, who sacrifices himself to save Emmett (Noah Ringer), Taggart's grandson.

By the next morning, most of the posse has deserted, and the others are attacked by Jake's former gang. Jake, who stole the gang's loot after their last heist, attempts to retake control, but fails. As he and the others flee, the aliens begin attacking again and Ella is captured. Jake jumps aboard the ship and attacks the alien pilot, causing the ship to crash, but Ella is fatally wounded.

Chiricahua Apaches capture the posse, blaming them for the alien attacks. As Ella's body is dumped on a fire, she is fully resurrected. Ella reveals herself to be an alien who traveled to Earth to help resist the invaders after they destroyed her homeworld. The aliens, who have been abducting humans to perform experiments, are also mining gold to power their machines. They are not invulnerable, however: Jake's gauntlet weapon can kill them, as well as stabbing and shooting them, though the creatures are far stronger and more durable than humans and have superior weapons. Ella claims Jake holds the secret to the aliens' whereabouts and says they must stop them before they exterminate all life on the planet. After taking medicine offered by the Apaches, Jake recalls that Alice was euthanized after she was used in an alien experiment, but he escaped, inadvertently stealing the alien weapon in the form of a gauntlet. He could also remember the location of the aliens' base of operations.

Armed with this knowledge, the group, now led by Dolarhyde, prepares to attack the aliens' grounded mothership. Jake returns to his old gang and persuades them to join the fight. In a sneak attack, the humans breach the spaceship, forcing the aliens into a ground battle. Jake and Ella board the ship and free the captives, but Jake is captured. Dolarhyde rescues him and both men escape the ship after killing the alien leader. As the remaining aliens are taking off in their damaged craft, Ella sacrifices herself, destroying the ship using Jake's gauntlet.

Jake's memory partially returns, and some abducted townsfolk begin to remember their past. Still a wanted man, Jake decides to leave; the sheriff and Dolarhyde say they will claim that he was killed in the invasion. The citizens intend to rebuild the town with the expectation that the newly discovered gold mine will soon bring many new settlers. Jake kindly rejects Dolarhyde's offer to help rebuild the town, and rides away.

Cast[link]

The cast includes:^[7]

Production[link]

Development and casting[link]

Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford portray two of the film's protagonists. Their casting has been described as a meeting between James Bond and Indiana Jones.[8]

The project began development in 1997, when Universal Pictures and DreamWorks bought film rights to a concept pitched by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, former president at Malibu Comics, which he described as a graphic novel in development. They hired Steve Oedekerk to write and direct the film, which Oedekerk planned to do after completing Nutty Professor II: The Klumps. Rosenberg, who formed Platinum Studios to pursue adapting Cowboys & Aliens and other Malibu Comics properties into film and television, joined as a producer.^[9] By 1998, Oedekerk left the project to pursue a remake of the 1964 film The Incredible Mr. Limpet with Jim Carrey.^[10] By 2004, the film rights were acquired by Columbia Pictures, who did not move the project beyond development.^[11]

In 2006, Rosenberg published Cowboys & Aliens as a graphic novel. In the following year, Universal and DreamWorks partnered again to adapt Cowboys & Aliens into a film.^[12] In June 2008, Robert Downey, Jr. entered negotiations to star in the film as Zeke Jackson, a former Union Army gunslinger.^[13] While Downey, Jr. was making Iron Man 2, he told director Jon Favreau about Cowboys & Aliens. Favreau investigated the project,^[14] and in September 2009, he joined as director.^[15] Downey, Jr. left the project in January 2010, to star in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows,^[16] and later in the month, Daniel Craig was hired to replace him.^[17] Favreau said Craig's portrayal of James Bond "brings a certain virtuosity".^[18] He also described Craig, "On the one hand, he's like this Jason Bourne type, a leading man who's also a lethal character, but on the other hand, he's also got a lot of humanity and vulnerability to him."^[19]

The type of fedora worn by Ford in the Indiana Jones films

In April 2010, Harrison Ford was cast alongside Craig.^[20] Favreau had cast Craig and Ford in the film because they were actors who suited the action-adventure roles so the characters would be less seen as comedic. The director compared Ford, in particular, with John Wayne in having "a sense of history" with the actor and the role.^[18] Before Cowboys & Aliens, Ford had previously acted in the Western films A Time for Killing in 1967, Journey To Shiloh in 1969 and The Frisco Kid in 1979.^[21] While Ford is well-known for playing Indiana Jones, the filmmakers wanted to avoid giving him a cowboy hat that would remind audiences too much of Jones. Writer Alex Kurtzman said, "We needed to make sure that—no pun intended—we tipped a hat to iconography of Harrison Ford and also presented the audience with a very different version."^[22]

Olivia Wilde was cast in one of the lead roles, and Favreau called Wilde's character the key to the film.^[14] Sam Rockwell was cast in a supporting role as Doc. The character was described as a large Mexican in the original script,^[23] but when Favreau and the writers learned of Rockwell's interest in the film, they reconceived and expanded the role.^[24] Favreau himself is known for appearing in his films, but for Cowboys & Aliens, he chose not to make a cameo appearance because he thought it would affect the tone of the film.^[14]

When asked about how the film was developing, Rosenberg stated, "It's incredible. Sometimes it's like seeing exactly what was going through my head when I first had that spark in my head as a kid. Jon Favreau's bringing his own talent and vision with the adaptation, but at the same time it remains true to what I was really trying to get at in the original story."^[25]

Steven Spielberg, one of the film's executive producers, visited the director and the writers during pre-production to look over the script and the artwork. He provided Favreau with a collection of classic Western films.^[19] Spielberg also invited the director and the writers to a private screening of several Western films and provided live commentary on how to make one properly.^[26] The films included Stagecoach, My Darling Clementine, and Destry Rides Again.^[21] Spielberg made several other suggestions: a main enemy alien,^[27] Jake's final use of the gauntlet being to decapitate an alien,^[28] and that Jake and Ella's first kiss should occur in the climax of the film.^[29]

Writing[link]

In the film's period as a developing project under several studios, different versions of the screenplay were drafted by numerous screenwriters, beginning with Steve Oedekerk. Other screenwriters involved included David Hayter, Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer, Jeffrey Boam, Thompson Evans, and Chris Hauty.^[13] When Universal and DreamWorks re-partnered in 2007, they hired Hawk Ostby and Mark Fergus.^[12] In 2009, Ostby and Fergus were replaced by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, and Damon Lindelof.^[30] Kurtzman and Orci analyzed American Western films including The Searchers. Orci said, "The first draft was very kind of jokey and broad and then it went very serious. You kind of swing back and forth between the two extremes and the tone until you find the exact right point where a Western and a sci-fi movie can really shake hands without it seeming unnatural."^[23] "Imagine you're watching Unforgiven and then Aliens land," Orci explained.^[31]

Orci also said, "The comic has the themes of enemies uniting to fight a common enemy and has the setting of that specific time period, so we kept the inspiration from all of that. In terms of the specifics of the story and who these characters are, we wanted the audience to be surprised and to not feel like they've already seen everything if they were fans of the comic. So, while the themes and the setting and many of the elements are a great inspiration, the story is completely adapted and translated for live action."^[32] The aliens were loosely based on the Anunnaki gods of Zecharia Sitchin's interpretation of the Babylonian religion, who have a distinct interest in gold.^[33]

Filming[link]

Cowboys & Aliens was not originally planned to be shown in 3-D. When approached with the idea by DreamWorks, Favreau was not interested, stating that Westerns should be shot only on film (as opposed to being shot digitally, which is required for modern 3D technology),^[34] and didn't want it to be converted after filming. "That would be like filming in black and white and colorizing it," he reasoned.^[35] Director of photography Matthew Libatique shot Cowboys & Aliens in the anamorphic format on 35 mm film to further a "classic movie feel".^[4]

On a budget of $163 million,^[2] principal photography for Cowboys & Aliens began^[36] at Albuquerque Studios in New Mexico on June 30, 2010.^[37] One of the filming locations was Plaza Blanca, "The White Place", where Western films like The Missing, 3:10 to Yuma, City Slickers, Young Guns, and The Legend of the Lone Ranger had been filmed.^[26] Sound stage work took place in Los Angeles, with additional location shooting at Randsburg, California.^[36] Filming finished on September 30.^[38]

A scene in which Craig's character rides a horse alongside a ravine and jumps down it onto a spacecraft emulated many scenes in American Western films where cowboys rode along a moving train and jumped on it. Favreau said the scene referenced the one in the 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indiana Jones chases a truck and noted that a similar scene existed in the 1939 film Stagecoach, saying "We're constantly referencing back to our roots."^[18] Cowboys & Aliens also make multiple references to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, such as the introduction to the aliens through the bright lights on their aircraft^[39] and an upturned paddle steamer in the middle of the desert.^[40] The film also "tease[s]" monster movies, and the scenes in the paddle steamer were a deliberate homage to Alien.^[41]

Design and effects[link]

Scott Chambliss was hired as the production designer based on his work on Star Trek, produced by Orci and Kurtzman.^[42] The visual effects were created by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), represented by Roger Guyett^[43] and Eddie Pasquarello as visual effects supervisors. Under the supervision of Shane Mahan,^[44] Legacy Effects created practical puppet aliens and full scale alien speeders. New Deal Studios constructed a miniature of the paddle steamer that is seen upturned in the film. Kerner Optical built a miniature of the alien ship and bluescreen stand-ins. The film also featured visual effects by Fuel VFX, The Embassy, Ghost, and Shade VFX, with previsualization from Halon Entertainment.^[4]

Favreau noted that Cowboys & Aliens focuses on a specific aspect of the alien genre which primarily revolves around the films of the 1980s:^[18] "And although we have quite a bit of CG – I like the way they told stories before – before you could show everything with CG. And it was a real unveiling of the creature, little by little, and using lighting and camera work and music to make it a very subjective experience. And so we tried to preserve that here."^[26] In designing the film's aliens, ILM was careful to make the creatures "cool and captivating".^[6] Guyett stated that they adopted a similar approach to that of District 9:

The trick was to make [the aliens] interesting through their behavior and what happens to them, and that was something that District 9 did very well. You were drawn into their world a bit and their idiosyncrasies had an immediate impact: they ate cat food. But those details overwhelm certain design aspects, so I was striving to find some behavior that fit in well with the Western genre, where you have people in very arduous conditions fighting the elements. And I thought that the irony of all this was that the aliens turn up and it could be more exaggerated for them. They're frontiersmen in a way: traveling to another place and having to deal with all the adversities of the climate. And in our case, we played up the fact that they weren't comfortable in our world. There are flies all around them; they don't like the light; and when they were wounded and exposed, a strange fungus grows around them.^[6]

The use of anamorphic lenses gave ILM no extra room to re-frame shots; it was a challenge to show both nine-foot-tall aliens and smaller humans in the same space. Instead, Guyett said, they shot more areas in case portions of the shots were lost. In filming the gun battle between the cowboys and aliens, in which the aliens move at twice the speed of the humans, actors were required to ride through the scene on horseback and shoot at men in gray suits and three-foot-tall hats; they aimed at faces drawn by Jon Favreau on the top of the hats. A big challenge for ILM's texture artists was to show the aliens in both a dark cave environment and harsh sunlight. The creatures were rendered in high resolution for close-ups; dirt and wounds were added to the aliens to emphasize the injuries they sustained in battle. After Favreau requested that the aliens experience a very unpleasant biological reaction to being wounded on Earth, the texture team created a yellow fungus-like look on the scars of the aliens. To design the fungus, texture supervisor Martin Murphy searched the Internet for real pictures of mold and growth on trees and eventually designed a "fried egg pattern".^[4] The heads of the aliens were based on those of sea turtles, after Favreau encountered sea turtles during a trip to Hawaii.^[41]

At the suggestion of Steven Spielberg,^[27] an "über-alien" was also designed.^[6] It was unclear if the red scar Jake gives the über-alien after escaping vivisection would be enough of an identifier to distinguish it from other aliens, so the creature was redesigned^[27] with translucent, pale skin due to the lack of time spent outside.^[41] Favreau described the über-alien as more fleshy and anthropomorphic than the other aliens^[45] and Murphy commented, "There are some parts of him like his arm that you can see into. It's almost like glass or ice or gelatiny surface that blends into a dryer area. The [sic] there's pieces of him that are more like a soft-shell crab or shiny and wet."^[4]

In addition to the aliens, other visual effects were required for the speeders, the alien spaceship, its interior, environment re-creations, and the head up display for Jake's arm gauntlet. For the invasion of the town of Absolution, both practical laser lighting and fire effects were utilized, along with practical ships and effects enhancements. ILM artists had to enhance the initial look of the alien "bolos", the cables used to abduct people, with renderings such as extra lights, after viewers thought the studio had failed to "paint out" the cables in the film’s first trailer. For a scene in which Jake and Ella ride on a speeder, the actors were filming on a practical mock-up against bluescreen; they were digitally replaced in wider shots.^[4]

Themes[link]

In Cowboys & Aliens, Director Jon Favreau sought a plausible approach to how humans from the late 19th century could confront extraterrestrial beings armed with advanced weaponry. He said, "It was very well laid out, well planned, and there were a lot of discussions with a lot of actors who called me to task on things that seemed too convenient, so we made sure we earned each step."^[19] The director also sought to maintain a Western tone as aliens appeared in the film, saying, "It's very easy to just cut the string and then all of a sudden the action starts and you're in Independence Day."^[19] Favreau cited the works of John Ford and Sergio Leone as sources of inspiration as well as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.^[23] Favreau also wanted the science-fiction element to stand on its own,^[19] referencing Alien, Predator, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.^[23] He said of both genres, "It's about finding the intersection of those two genres . . . If you do it right, it honors both, and it becomes interesting and clever and a reinvention of two things that people understand the conventions of, instead of just a retread or remake or sequel or reboot of a film you've seen before."^[19]

In the Americas, Native American nations were severely damaged by European settlers, specifically because of the Europeans' advanced military technology. Favreau compared the film to the historical confrontation "in the frustration of not having the technology to allow you to prevail. It's always the low-tech culture that feels powerless when faced with an enemy that has technology on their side."^[18] In the film, the cowboys are the low-tech culture, and the aliens with advanced technology possess the belief of Manifest Destiny. Favreau also said of the premise, "It allows the cowboys and Native Americans to come together, which would be impossible had there not been a greater common enemy. It sets the Western up in a very classic way and then turns it on its ear."^[18] When the aliens appear, the film becomes a road movie in which the main characters try to track the aliens, team up with different groups, and ultimately confront the aliens. Favreau compared the gathering to The Magnificent Seven in facing seemingly insurmountable odds in their confrontation.^[46]

The character of Meacham also presents an unconventional take on Christian principles to support the film's main theme of redemption. According to Favreau, Meacham's teaching Doc how to shoot not only references similar scenes in other Westerns but also "teach[es] him how to be a person".^[47] Meacham's dying words to Jake, "God don't care who you were, Son, only who you are", speaks of the central theme of redemption.^[48] The hummingbird that Jake sees at various points in the film is a "good spirit" that could represent either Alice or Ella; an alternate theory is that Ella was an angel that helped Jake "get over" Alice.^[49] Favreau also suggested a back-story to Cowboys & Aliens: the über-alien is the mastermind of the invasion; all other aliens are "worker bees", possibly genetically engineered by another species of aliens that remained on their home planet and sent the worker bees as conquistadors.^[27]

Marketing[link]

Harrison Ford, Jon Favreau, Daniel Craig and Olivia Wilde promoting the film at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con

Cowboys & Aliens, which crosses genres with the American Western element of cowboys and the science-fiction element of extraterrestrials, has an "inherently comic" title and premise.^[5] At the San Diego Comic-Con International in July 2010, director Jon Favreau hosted a presentation and was accompanied by the film's primary cast members, including Harrison Ford in his first Comic-Con appearance.^[35] In the presentation, Favreau explained to audiences that he intended the film as a serious mix of the Western styles of Sergio Leone and John Ford and "really scary" science fiction like Alien and Predator.^[5] The first trailer for the film appeared in the following November, and The New York Times reported that film audiences found the premise comedic. Eddie Egan, the president of marketing at Universal Pictures, acknowledged the misconception and said, "The trailer is the first very public step in reconciling the tone of the movie with the more immediate effect of the title on its own."^[5] The studio anticipated a marketing campaign that would demonstrate that the film is "a tough-minded adventure" like Unforgiven by Clint Eastwood.^[5]

During Super Bowl XLV on February 6, 2011, the studio aired a TV spot for Cowboys & Aliens. Hours before the American football game, Favreau used Twitter to link followers to the spot online. Entertainment Weekly reported, "It . . . roused the geek-hive fan base and stirred new speculation about his hybrid of classic Westerns and extraterrestrial-invasion thrillers."^[50] After the spot aired, Favreau said the first trailer was intended as an introduction to pique people's curiosity and that the Super Bowl TV spot was "showing more of the sense of adventure as things unfold".^[18]

In April 2011, Favreau and Roberto Orci appeared at WonderCon in San Francisco, where they presented nine minutes of film footage and answered questions about the film. Favreau explained that marketing would show "only a brief glimpse of the aliens of the title" before the film is released. He explained the withholding of certain elements, "I think there are enough visionary people involved with this film that there is an understanding that there is a personality that the marketing campaign can take on as well as the film itself . . . I want to make sure that if the audience goes to see [the film], there is going to be a lot of surprises in it that they haven't seen in the marketing materials."^[51]

Release[link]

Cowboys & Aliens had its world premiere at the San Diego Comic-Con International in San Diego on July 23, 2011.^[52] It was commercially released in the United States and Canada on July 29, 2011, and in other territories in ensuing weekends.^[53] Paramount Pictures International also released the film in IMAX theaters around the world, as it did for Favreau's previous film, Iron Man 2.^[54]

Box Office Mojo forecast that Cowboys & Aliens would gross $95 million total in the United States and Canada. For the comparatively low figure, the website cited that the marketing had not contextualized the film effectively and that hybridized Western films like Jonah Hex and Wild Wild West were not successful at the box office.^[55] In territories outside the United States and Canada, the website forecast $140 million total, citing that American Western films are not historically popular, but that the premise of the alien invasion and the presence of international stars like Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford would generate interest.^[56] In contrast, box office tracker Paul Dergarabedian said the film's combination of cowboy and extraterrestrial themes in particular would attract audiences. Dergarabedian also believed that audiences' familiarity with Craig as character James Bond would help the film.^[57]

Box office[link]

On the opening day of Cowboys & Aliens, estimates showed that its opening day gross was $13.0 million and it came in second place to The Smurfs's opening day gross of $13.3 million. This was considered a surprise since Cowboys & Aliens was expected to be the clear winner for the weekend.^[58] Estimates then showed Cowboys & Aliens and The Smurfs tied at the #1 spot for the weekend with $36.2 million each.^[59] However, when the actual results for the weekend were announced Cowboys & Aliens won the weekend with $36.4 million just beating out The Smurfs, which grossed $35.6 million.^[60] The film grossed $100,240,551 in the U.S. and Canada (making it the 500th $100 million domestic movie^[61]) as well as $74,581,774 internationally, bringing its worldwide total to $174,822,325.^[3] The film is considered to be a financial disappointment, narrowly grossing its budget back.^[62][63][64]

Critical reception[link]

Cowboys & Aliens was released to mixed reviews, earning 44% approval from 223 critics on review-aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes with an average rating of 5.6/10, and garnering a score of 50 out of 100 from 41 critics on Metacritic.^[65][66] CinemaScore polls reported that the average grade moviegoers gave the film was a B on an A plus to F scale.^[67]

Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter praised the film, saying in a summary: "It sounds kooky on paper but on the screen cowboys and aliens make beautiful, fun music together." Honeycutt felt that the success of the film's blend of aliens and western themes was due to "the determination by everyone involved to play the damn thing straight. Even the slightest goofiness, the tiniest touch of camp, and the whole thing would blow sky high. But it doesn't." Honeycutt appreciated the casting and performances in the film, giving particular mention to Ford, Wilde, and Craig. Criticism was given to the aliens however, which Honeycutt claimed "don't rate as characters", existing as "moving blobs you shoot at in a video game."^[68] Variety's Peter Debruge echoed Honeycutt's sentiments that the "potential hamminess" of the premise is offset by the cast, particularly Craig through a "mix of ruthlessness and sensitivity." He considered however, that Wilde had the opposite effect, stating she "appears out of place among her grizzled co-stars". Debruge appreciated the attention paid to the roots of the two genres, saying "beneath all the state-of-the-art special effects beats an old-fashioned heart, one that prizes both of the genres in play" and concluded that "a canny blend of CG and practical effects serve the sci-fi elements well, while location shooting and Mary Zophres' form-fitting period duds make the West look its best."^[69] The Village Voice praised the Western elements of the film as "lovingly" handled but felt the sci-fi aspects a "gimmick" and "much more standard fare" in comparison. The Village Voice appreciated Favreau's storytelling and singled out Ford for his performance, saying "Ford, enlivened by dude garb, seems to enjoy himself in front of a camera for the first time in decades".^[70]

Roger Ebert positively received the film and cast, saying "as preposterous moneymakers go, it's ambitious and well-made. The acting from the large cast is of a high standard, Craig and Ford were more or less born into their roles, and director Jon Favreau actually develops his characters and gives them things to do, instead of posing them in front of special effects." He lamented however that the film was not a pure Western, saying of the aliens, "there is more genuine suspense when [Percy Dolarhyde] starts shooting up the town than when countless aliens appear".^[71] Salon's Andrew O'Hehir offered a mixed response, claiming the film to be well made and clever, and singling out Craig and Ford for their performances. O'Hehir was, however, critical of the combination of western and science-fiction elements, calling it "a mediocre western clumsily welded to a mediocre alien shoot-'em-up".^[72]

Slant's Nick Schager reacted negatively to the film, stating "Cowboys & Aliens mashes up genres with a staunch dedication to getting everything wrong, making sure that each scene is more inane than the one that preceded it"; giving the film one star out of four. Schager continued "Cowboys & Aliens's western accoutrements are . . . so false as to be stunning, with every steely-eyed glare from Craig's Man With No Memory, every confrontation between his Jake and Ford's grizzled Dolarhyde, and every silhouetted horseback ride across a sunset range seeming like a wan approximation of a familiar genre staple . . . Favreau's visuals have an inauthentic and bland blockbuster sheen, and his actors are similarly afflicted with a case of poseur-itis (Craig's affected silent-type glowering, Ford's gruff racism, or Wilde's blank, wide-eyed stares), failing to deliver a single believable line-reading or gesture."^[73]

Accolades[link]

Cowboys & Aliens received five nominations. At the 39th Annie Awards, the film was nominated in Animated Effects in a Live Action Production for both Gary Wu and Lee Uren, but lost to Transformers: Dark of the Moon.^[74] The ceremony took place on February 4, 2011. The film received nominations from the Art Directors Guild for Fantasy Film, honoring production designer Scott Chambliss, and^[75] for Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture at the 18th Screen Actors Guild Awards, but lost to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 in both ceremonies.^[76] Ford received a Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.^[77]

Home media[link]

Cowboys & Aliens was released on DVD and Blu-ray on December 6, 2011.^[78] The release includes three behind-the-scenes featurettes, plus feature commentary with director Jon Favreau.

Infringement lawsuit[link]

On November 30, 2011, a lawsuit was filed against Universal, DreamWorks, Platinum Studios, and Scott Mitchell Rosenberg by Steven John Busti. Busti claimed copyright infringement, stating that he wrote a preview for his story Cowboys & Aliens in 1994 and that it was published in the January 1995 issue of Bizarre Fantasy #1, but that he did not copyright the story until September 2011.^[79] Busti alleges that in 1997 Rosenberg and Platinum produced a one sheet depicting a cowboy being chased by an alien, which eventually led to Universal and DreamWorks buying film rights and Platinum producing a graphic novel series in 2006 that resembled Busti's work.^{[citation needed]}

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Cowboys & Aliens

• Official website
• Cowboys & Aliens at AllRovi
• Cowboys & Aliens at Box Office Mojo
• Cowboys & Aliens at the Internet Movie Database
• Cowboys & Aliens at Metacritic
• Cowboys & Aliens at Rotten Tomatoes

Captain America is a fictional character, a superhero who appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character first appeared in Captain America Comics #1 (cover-dated March 1941), from Marvel Comics' 1940s predecessor, Timely Comics,^[1] and was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. As of 2007, an estimated 210 million copies of "Captain America" comic books had been sold in 75 countries.^[2] For nearly all of the character's publication history, Captain America was the alter ego of Steve Rogers, a frail young man who was enhanced to the peak of human perfection by an experimental serum in order to aid the United States war effort. Captain America wears a costume that bears an American flag motif, and is armed with an indestructible shield that can be thrown as a weapon.^[3]

An intentionally patriotic creation who was often depicted fighting the Axis powers of World War II, Captain America was Timely Comics' most popular character during the wartime period. After the war ended, the character's popularity waned and he disappeared by the 1950s aside from an ill-fated revival in 1953. Captain America was reintroduced during the Silver Age of comics when he was revived from suspended animation by the superhero team the Avengers in The Avengers #4 (March 1964). Since then, Captain America has often led the team, as well as starring in his own series.

Steve Rogers was purportedly assassinated in Captain America vol. 5, #25 (March 2007), although he was later revealed to be alive. The comic-book series Captain America continued to be published,^[4] with Rogers' former sidekick, James "Bucky" Barnes, having taken up the mantle, and keeping it at the insistence of Rogers, who upon his return began operating as an intelligence agent in the Secret Avengers title, and in the limited series Steve Rogers: Super Soldier, before resuming the identity after Bucky was killed in the line of duty.

Captain America was the first Marvel Comics character adapted into another medium with the release of the 1944 movie serial Captain America. Since then, the character has been featured in several other films and television series, including Chris Evans' portrayal in Captain America: The First Avenger, released on July 22, 2011, and The Avengers, released on May 4, 2012. Captain America was ranked sixth on IGN's Top 100 Comic Book Heroes in 2011.

Publication history[link]

In 1940, writer Joe Simon conceived the idea for Captain America and made a sketch of the character in costume.^[5] "I wrote the name 'Super American' at the bottom of the page," Simon said in his autobiography. "No, it didn't work. There were too many 'Supers' around. 'Captain America' had a good sound to it. There weren't a lot of captains in comics. It was as easy as that. The boy companion was simply named Bucky, after my friend Bucky Pierson, a star on our high school basketball team."^[6]

Simon recalled in his autobiography that Timely Comics publisher Martin Goodman gave him the go-ahead and directed that a Captain America solo comic book series be published as soon as possible. Needing to fill a full comic with primarily one character's stories, Simon did not believe that his regular creative partner, artist Jack Kirby, could handle the workload alone:

I didn't have a lot of objections to putting a crew on the first issue.... There were two young artists from Connecticut that had made a strong impression on me. Al Avison and Al Gabriele often worked together and were quite successful in adapting their individual styles to each other. Actually, their work was not too far from [that of] Kirby's. If they worked on it, and if one inker tied the three styles together, I believed the final product would emerge as quite uniform. The two Als were eager to join in on the new Captain America book, but Jack Kirby was visibly upset. 'You're still number one, Jack,' I assured him. 'It's just a matter of a quick deadline for the first issue.'

'I'll make the deadline,' Jack promised. 'I'll pencil it [all] myself and make the deadline.' I hadn't expected this kind of reaction ... but I acceded to Kirby's wishes and, it turned out, was lucky that I did. There might have been two Als, but there was only one Jack Kirby.

I wrote the first Captain America book with penciled lettering right on the drawing boards, with very rough sketches for figures and backgrounds. Kirby did his thing, building the muscular anatomy, adding ideas and pepping up the action as only he could. Then he tightened up the penciled drawings, adding detailed backgrounds, faces and figures.^[6]

Al Liederman would ink that first issue, which was lettered by Simon and Kirby's regular letterer, Howard Ferguson.^[7]

Simon said Captain America was a consciously political creation; he and Kirby were morally repulsed by the actions of Nazi Germany in the years leading up to the United States' involvement in World War II and felt war was inevitable: "The opponents to the war were all quite well organized. We wanted to have our say too."^[8]

Captain America Comics #1 — cover-dated March 1941 and on sale in December 1940, a year before the attack on Pearl Harbor, but a full year into World War II — showed the protagonist punching Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in the jaw; it sold nearly one million copies.^[9] While most readers responded favorably to the comic, some took objection. Simon noted, "When the first issue came out we got a lot of... threatening letters and hate mail. Some people really opposed what Cap stood for."^[8] The threats, which included menacing groups of people loitering out on the street outside of the offices, proved so serious that police protection was posted with Mayor Fiorello La Guardia personally contacting Simon and Kirby to give his support.^[10]

Though preceded as a "patriotically themed superhero" by MLJ's The Shield, Captain America immediately became the most prominent and enduring of that wave of superheroes introduced in American comic books prior to and during World War II,^{[citation needed]} as evidenced by the unusual move at the time of premiering the character in his own title instead of an anthology title first. This popularity drew the attention and a complaint from MLJ that the character's triangular shield too closely resembled the chest symbol of their Shield character. In response, Goodman had Simon and Kirby create a distinctive round shield for issue 2, which went on to become an iconic element of the character.^[11] With his sidekick Bucky, Captain America faced Nazis, Japanese, and other threats to wartime America and the Allies. Stanley Lieber, now better known by his pen name Stan Lee, contributed to the character in issue #3 in the filler text story "Captain America Foils the Traitor's Revenge," which introduced the character's use of his shield as a returning throwing weapon.^[12] Captain America soon became Timely's most popular character and even had a fan-club called the "Sentinels of Liberty."^[8]

Circulation figures remained close to a million copies per month after the debut issue, which outstripped even the circulation of news magazines like Time during the period.^[13] After the Simon and Kirby team moved to DC in late 1941, having produced Captain America Comics through issue #10 (January 1942), Al Avison and Syd Shores became regular pencillers of the celebrated title, with one generally inking over the other. The character was also featured in All Winners Comics #1-19 (Summer 1941 – Fall 1946), Marvel Mystery Comics #80-84 and #86-92, USA Comics #6-17 (Dec. 1942 – Fall 1945), and All Select Comics #1-10 (Fall 1943 – Summer 1946).