Over the years, there’s been a lot of speculation surrounding Kurt Russell’s level of involvement behind the scenes of the classic 1993 western Tombstone, particularly following the firing of its original director Kevin Jarre a month into production, and the subsequent appointment of his replacement George P. Cosmatos.
Well, in a lengthy blog post on his official site, Val Kilmer has cleared things up once and for all, stating that: “Kurt is solely responsible for Tombstone’s success, no question.”
“I was there every minute and although Kurt’s version differs slightly from mine, the one thing he’s totally correct about is, how hard he worked the day before, for the next day’s shot list, and tremendous effort he and I both put into editing, as the studio wouldn’t give us any extra time to make up for the whole month we lost with the first director,” writes Kilmer. “We lost our first director after a month of shooting and I watched Kurt sacrifice his own role and energy to devote himself as a storyteller, even going so far as to draw up shot lists to help our replacement director, George Cosmatos, who came in with only 2 days prep.”
“I have such admiration for Kurt as he basically sacrificed lots of energy that would have gone into his role, to save the film,” he continued. “Everyone cared, don’t get me wrong, but Kurt put his money where his mouth was, and not a lot of stars extend themselves for the cast and crew. Not like he did. I’ll say it again, Kurt was responsible for the film’s success. He and I worked so hard I eventually moved in with him and slept on the sofa when Goldie wasn’t in town, so we could use the extra 20 minutes writing or going over schedule etc.”
Be sure to read Kilmer’s full post here.
Originally published August 14, 2017. Updated April 17, 2018.
