"Hated It": Josh Brolin Talks ‘Jonah Hex,’ Says They Reshot 66 Pages In 12 Days

It’s certainly another lifetime ago for DC Entertainment, and the comic-book-movie world in general, but back in 2010, audiences and critics saw how ambitious projects could misfire badly with "Jonah Hex."

"Crank" duo Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor were hired to write and direct the movie in 2007, but a few a months before filming was slated to begin, they exited the project, with the unlikely choice of Jimmy Hayward ("Horton Hears A Who!") stepping in. Production was pushed back slightly, the script was reworked, but the film ran into even more problems, and at one point, "I Am Legend" director Francis Lawrence was brought in for reshoots. The result was a disaster, and Josh Brolin is candid about his not-so-fond memories of the production.

“Oh, ‘Jonah Hex,’ hated it. Hated it,” he told Nerdist, who complimented the actor on always playing it straight when asked about his films. And it wasn’t just the process of making the comic-book movie that drove him up the wall, but the final product he has little regard for as well.

“The experience of making it — that would have been a better movie based on what we did. As opposed to what ended up happening to it, which is going back and reshooting 66 pages in 12 days and that being… Listen, I understand it’s financiers, you’re trying to save their money and it becomes a financial thing, but if — there’s this thing called revenge trading. And I’m disciplined enough to know you never do it.

“But with ‘Jonah Hex,’ if I had $5 million — which is always how I saw that movie. I remember when I was talking to Warner Bros. about doing that movie, ‘High Plains Drifter’ is what I put on the TV, I said, ‘That’s what I wanna do.’ I would do that movie still," Brolin reflected. "If I ever had the balls to spend $5 million, which I don’t, I would do that movie, ’cause that’s the version of that movie that would have been successful, for sure. And it didn’t need to cost anything more than $8-$10 million.”

It’s perhaps hardly a surprise that a movie that saw its script get chopped and ripped, and riddled with changes at the hands of the film’s producers, didn’t turn out so well. The result? Well, the film, which cost approximately $80 million, brought in $10 million worldwide, and remains one of the more embarrassing comic-book movies in recent memory.

Below, check out the full conversation with Brolin on Nerdist and this recent chat with The Frame.