Ethan Hawke has taken the bold step of signing on to remake a 75-year-old Western movie starring Gregory Peck, which is widely regarded as one of the genre’s seminal releases. Henry King’s 1950 classic The Gunfighter might not have captured the popular imagination quite as much as the best-known Westerns starring John Wayne or Clint Eastwood, but its importance to the genre can’t be understated.

The movie’s understated tone and heavily stylized rendering of gun-slinging duels involving Peck’s anti-hero Jimmy Ringo would be arguably the biggest influence of any film on Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy starring Eastwood. Like Eastwood’s Man with No Name, Ringo is an outlaw with a fearsome reputation, whose only life philosophy is “to keep from getting killed.” Meanwhile, remakes of classic Westerns aren’t completely new territory for Ethan Hawke, although his appearance in a new version of The Magnificent Seven nine years ago hardly set the world alight. Still, he’s as well-placed as any actor, writer or producer out there today to give The Gunfighter another sH๏τ.

Gregory Peck’s The Gunfighter Is So Good, It’s Hard To Imagine How A Remake Could Top It

The Original Version Stands The Test Of Time

The Gunfighter was initially supposed to star John Wayne as Jimmy Ringo, and the Duke must have been kicking himself when he saw Peck make the role his own. In one of his best movie roles, Gregory Peck gives a surprisingly rugged performance as Ringo, literally shooting from the hip and taking no prisoners wherever he goes. His characterization is an apt metaphor for the movie as a whole, which presents its set pieces with little unnecessary fanfare and handles its tragic ending with masterful understatement that serves to elevate the mythology surrounding its protagonist.

It’s difficult to see how anything 20th Century Studios, Hawke, or his writing partner Shelby Gaines come up with in a new remake could surpᴀss the original Gunfighter. Moreover, Western remakes have offered up mixed results in recent decades, with even an all-round success like the Coen Brothers’ 2010 remake of True Grit feeling somewhat superfluous to the genre. Hawke is taking a huge risk by meddling with a genuine cult classic, which only seems to get better with age.

If Anyone Can Do The Gunfighter Justice, It’s Ethan Hawke

Hawke Has Experience Of Remaking Westerns And Loves Peck’s Version

Yet Hawke is certainly a dab hand at making Western movies, having starred in three himself during the past nine years. While The Magnificent Seven may have garnered the most attention, the best of these three films is actually In a Valley of Violence, in which he plays an outlaw type who knows how to kill a man, not unlike Jimmy Ringo. Hawke also counts The Gunfighter among his favorite movies of all time, demonstrating his pᴀssion for a project in which he’s about to play a major role. His remake won’t be a throwaway grab at franchise filmmaking, but an artistic labor of love.

It’s ultimately not realistic to hold Hawke’s prospective remake up against the original version of The Gunfighter, since the movie’s new iteration will inevitably be very different in style and substance. Hawke also has the advantage of remaking a film that isn’t especially well-known outside circles of Western enthusiasts, unlike The Magnificent Seven or True Grit. If he and his fellow filmmakers manage to put their own definitive stamp on The Gunfighter, there’s even a chance that their version becomes a classic in its own right.