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Credit: Far Out \/ YouTube Still<\/p>\n
Tue 4 August 2026 20:45, UK <\/p>\n
Even though he was already a teenager by the time the 1970s had even started, Billy Bob Thornton<\/a> gives off the impression of a man who rues the fact that he was born at least two decades too late.<\/p>\n He\u2019s always been adamant that 1973 was the greatest year in music history<\/a>, and while that coincided with the end of his high school years, you get the sneaking suspicion that he\u2019d have much rather been of an age where he could drink, do drugs, and follow his favourite bands around the country on tour.<\/p>\n Similarly, he believes that U2 and REM are the only legendary bands to have emerged<\/a> since the \u201970s drew to a close, and based on the music he\u2019s spent most of his life recording, it\u2019s hard to think of him as anything other than a man out of time, clinging on to the glory days he was technically there to witness, but not in the way he\u2019d have ideally wanted to witness them.<\/p>\n With that in mind, it makes perfect sense that one of the proudest moments of his movie days, which came in a picture that very few people could have given less of a shit about, no matter how hard they tried, led him to theorise that it wouldn\u2019t have been such an unmitigated disaster had it been made and released in, you guessed it, the \u201970s.<\/p>\n If you want to split hairs, it probably wouldn\u2019t have been made in the \u201970s anyway, because there had already been several high-profile releases<\/a> based on the exact same subject matter, and one of them starred one of the most iconic leading men in Hollywood history. Still, he\u2019s allowed to regret things the way he wants to.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the things in my career in which I\u2019m most proud of is playing Davy Crockett, because all those guys at the Alamo were heroes to me,\u201d he said. \u201cFrom now on, I can know I played Davy Crockett in The Alamo, and that will be cinematic history, you know? John Wayne played him, too, but I was told by historians that we made the most historically accurate movie that\u2019s been made about the Alamo.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s all well and good, but it would help if anyone bothered to see it. Director John Lee Hancock\u2019s historical epic, which Thornton called \u201ca truly great movie,\u201d cost over $100 million to produce, and earned a shade over $25 million from cinemas, got absolutely slammed by critics, and, by ending up almost $150 million in the red, it became one of the biggest box office bombs of all time<\/a>.<\/p>\n Further reading: Cutting Room Floor<\/strong><\/p>\n Why? Not because it was rubbish. No, according to Thornton, it was because of those damned youths. \u201cI think it didn\u2019t do better at the box office because 14-year-olds go to movies, and 14-year-olds don\u2019t give a shit about history anymore,\u201d he pondered. \u201cI think if the whole movie had been about a battle, it might have been different. But it wasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n It surely couldn\u2019t have had anything to do with The Alamo being terrible, or that nobody asked for it, wanted it, or needed to exist, or its years spent lingering in development hell. Nope, it was those pesky teenagers and their apathy toward the past. \u201cI think if that movie had come out in the \u201970s, it would have done very well,\u201d he added, apparently forgetting that Wayne\u2019s Alamo had come out in the \u201960s and it nearly bankrupted him<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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<\/a> The Far Out John Wayne Newsletter<\/p>\n