Exclusive: Screenwriters Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby talk Cowboys & Aliens
Based on the graphic novel by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, Cowboys & Aliens had a long development hell status ever since 1997. Over the years, various writers and directors tried to develop the film for Universal who owned the rights, until they dropped it. DreamWorks picked up the rights and hired Children of Men and Iron Man‘s screenwriters Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby to adapt it, who along with director Jon Favreau created the Cowboys & Aliens we will see July 29th, 2011.
Killer Film caught up with the screenwriting duo for a chat about the film. Check it out!
Jon: You were offered the screenplay duties for Cowboys & Aliens after Iron Man, yet there’s been a slew of drafts prior. What made you guys jump at the chance to do this?
Mark Fergus: I think it was because we thought it was a new project, since we didn’t know about its long production history. We got the graphic novel and were asked to see what we felt and thought about it. We just ran with our own take without worrying about what was written before. It was good actually. We thought about it as a grounded western, with our approach which wasn’t done before. It was Stagecoach (here) with aliens, like any of those John Ford classics. We didn’t have to apologize if we played it straight, and that’s were we started. Just play it like it’s actually happening, but make it fun. In District 9, that showed aliens don’t always land in America, so these aliens could have easily shown up in the Old West.
Then it’s just a ball from there, colliding the genres. It seemed crazy that no one’s done it before, especially with how far we were going to take it.
Jon: You said you went back to the graphic novel, was it freeing not to be as strict with it? Can you talk about any changes and getting the right tone for it?
Hawk Ostby: When we looked at the graphic novel, there’s this image of a cowboy riding up to the spaceship, and that right there made us go: “Okay, this could be great.” It was a really powerful image.
Mark Fergus: Yeah, we really liked the graphic novel. It was fun and light. It was that title and cover art that was the real inspiration for us. We told them in meetings that we have a totally different approach to it, was that okay? We wanted to start with the classic man with no name, a town clashing with ranchers, and to start off with some classic western ideas, then take it to the spooky, the strange, and none of that was really in the graphic novel. We did point to a few characters, scenarios, or backdrops because we wanted and take it to the Spielberg tone. That was our pitch, and if they didn’t go for it, we would’ve lost it. They all dug it and that became the movie essentially. We respected the cool ideas of bringing the genres together from the graphic novel, but we just ran with it while keeping the heart and spirit of the comic. We were coming off of Iron Man, and that is stricter with his history and mythology, so this didn’t have that type of fan base, so it was freeing.
Jon: So that was pretty freeing going from Tony Stark and honoring the fans while making it accessible to people who didn’t know all about Iron Man, to this. You guys have any conversations with Scott Mitchell Rosenberg?
Hawk Ostby: Yeah. We didn’t actually speak to him, it was mostly set up at DreamWorks.
Mark Fergus: He was aware of our treatment and I think he really liked it. We didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes by going in the direction we were going in, but Scott was really into taking this to a new level for the movie version. His take was on a smaller canvas and  he always said he was really pleased, from what we heard.
Jon: Initially, you said that you didn’t know about Cowboys & Aliens prior to getting the job, but did you eventually take a look at what was written before while it stayed in development hell, or did you not care?
Hawk Ostby: For our arbitration, we did take a look, eventually.
Mark Fergus: We did verify, as we wanted to familiarize ourselves with the history. To clear our arbitration, we did, but once we were finished it was cool to see what other people tried. What was amazing was everyone had this crazy different take on it. It was a cool genre mix but also how bad the idea of cowboys and aliens was in those, people really took off with the ideas when just given the title and idea. It was fun though. We didn’t have any baggage to carry, so we picked the ideas that we felt was the coolest. It was a very strange situation. Sometimes you don’t realize the long history something has.
Jon: When you were tapped to write the screenplay, was Jon Favreau tapped to direct yet?
Hawk Ostby: No, that all happened afterwards.
Mark Fergus: Yeah, yeah, we moved on to other things then when Jon got it. That production part of it happened after us. It was cool to hear that because Jon has that sense of fun and seriousness, much like Spielberg. It was a very happy day when we heard Jon got it.
Jon: After you left to do other things, were you aware of Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci’s (Star Trek, Transformers) rewrites?
Hawk Ostby: We never want to let something go, but they were producers on it, and when that writer’s strike happened, they wanted to get it done fast. They just added their rewrites that eventually got the film going into production. So we would’ve loved to finish all rewrites, and they had discussions with us saying that they loved our take and are doing the movie we envisioned. We all believed in the same movie, so we all were in the same direction. That was cool.
Jon: Have you seen the final film yet?
Hawk Ostby: I’ve seen about 20 minutes of it. I haven’t seen the whole thing yet, nope.
Mark Fergus: I want to see it with an audience. Yeah, I don’t want to go into a screening room by myself to watch it (laughs). I’m excited.
Jon Favreau said on a recent radio interview, “I wanted to be different and make my film not 3D“, fans can see Cowboys & Aliens in theaters July 29th, 2011.
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