An individual posted a question to one of the screenwriting forums on LinkedIn about the western genre and whether it\u2019s worth his time to finish his western script<\/strong><\/font> and start querying. My thought was yes. <\/p>\n

The western genre appears to be back \u2013 but it isn\u2019t strictly John Wayne anymore.<\/strong><\/font> <\/p>\n

The western has evolved into sci-fi (The Road<\/em>), the new cop action thriller on FX (\u201cJustified\u201d) and then there have been a handful of fairly straight westerns over the past few years (3:10 to Yuma<\/em> remake, No Country for Old Men<\/em>, True Grit<\/em> remake coming out). <\/p>\n

I emailed a TV producer friend about this, and she indicated that westerns aren\u2019t the easiest sell <\/strong><\/font>because they\u2019re pricey to make and don\u2019t necessarily do well overseas. Her advice? “Trying to guess the market one way or another is never the best way to approach your work. Write the story you’re dying to tell – and then people will want to read it no matter what.\u201d<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n

Another level to this is that there is a lot of filming happening in New Mexico<\/strong><\/font> \u2013 there are tax breaks and it\u2019s cheaper to film in NM. Shooting in New Mexico is a good deal right now, and productions are coming. I saw Steven Soderbergh on the street a few days ago \u2013 he\u2019s here to shoot his new film, Knockout<\/a><\/em>. Apparently the Coen Brothers are in town to shoot True Grit<\/a><\/em>. <\/p>\n

I just think that with the handful of high profile westerns out there over the past few years, it\u2019s a genre that\u2019s in the public consciousness. I\u2019d recommend finding a way to tweak it \u2013 either with a hybrid genre, or finding another in to make it fresh, your own and contemporary. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An individual posted a question to one of the screenwriting forums on LinkedIn about the western genre and whether it\u2019s worth his time to finish his western script and start querying. My thought was yes. The western genre appears to be back \u2013 but it isn\u2019t strictly John Wayne anymore. The western has evolved into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.screenwriter-to-screenwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.screenwriter-to-screenwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.screenwriter-to-screenwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.screenwriter-to-screenwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.screenwriter-to-screenwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=850"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.screenwriter-to-screenwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":855,"href":"http:\/\/www.screenwriter-to-screenwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850\/revisions\/855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.screenwriter-to-screenwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.screenwriter-to-screenwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.screenwriter-to-screenwriter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}