The greatest movies never made: Ridley Scott’s ‘Pancho’s War’
Blockbuster period pieces and Ridley Scott have become increasingly synonymous throughout the 21st century, but the director wasn’t quite as closely associated with the genre back in the early 1990s.
In fact, it was starting to look like they might even be ill-suited for each other, with 1492: Conquest of Paradise releasing to coincide with the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ journey to the ‘New World’, which was a major critical and commercial misfire.
On the plus side, it did at least fare better than John Glen’s spiritual companion piece, Christopher Columbus: The Discovery, which was released less than two months earlier. It bombed even harder, won Tom Selleck a Razzie for ‘Worst Supporting Actor’, and received an additional five nominations, including ‘Worst Picture’ and ‘Worst Director’.
It was a notable disappointment, but the fact remained that Scott was little over a decade removed from Alien and Blade Runner, and his previous two features before Conquest of Paradise were the underrated noir thriller Black Rain and Thelma & Louise, which landed him on the Academy Awards shortlist for ‘Best Director’.
This was a time before Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven, Robin Hood, Exodus: Gods and Kings, The Last Duel, and Gladiator II, so Scott wasn’t Hollywood’s go-to guy for the historical epic just yet. Seeking to atone for the disappointment of his Columbus dud, in January 1993, it was announced that the filmmaker would be taking the reins on the early 20th-century adventure Pancho’s War.
Set during the Mexican Revolution of 1916, producer John Goldwyn touted the film to Deadline as “a cross between the Sergio Leone westerns and the Lethal Weapon films,” which is a hell of an elevator pitch. Production was pencilled in to kick off that summer, with Goldwyn adding that not only was it “Ridley’s unbridled enthusiasm that got me exhilarated,” but “he really wants to make this film.”
Obviously, he didn’t, but a director like Scott overseeing an action-packed period thriller pitched as existing somewhere between the Dollars trilogy, Once Upon a Time in the West, and Richard Donner’s classic buddy cop franchise is enough to excite anyone, not just the people willing to finance the project.
Scripted by Marcel Montecino from a story penned by Montecito and David Balkan, the story followed an American military munitions expert dispatched to the Mexican border to deliver weapons to General John J Pershing, who led an operation into the country in March 1916 to try and apprehend the revolutionary Pancho Villa.
The so-called ‘Pancho Villa Expedition’ – or the ‘Mexican Expedition’ as the United States called it officially – suffered from a lack of supplies and equipment and was launched in retaliation for an attack on the border town of Columbus, New Mexico, with Pershing leading 10,000 troops more than 350 miles into Mexico in an effort to capture their target, an aim in which they were ultimately unsuccessful.
Based on Scott’s filmography, Pancho’s War would have been a feast for the eyes, allowing the director to indulge his career-long habit of staging expansive set pieces and blood-and-thunder battles, and there’s a distinct possibility he may have played fast and loose with the historical facts, too.
The reasons why it didn’t happen remain a mystery. Not only did the planned mid-1993 start date evaporate in a puff of smoke, but Scott’s next picture wouldn’t be released until February 1996 when survival thriller White Squall arrived and followed Conquest of Paradise‘s footsteps by losing a small fortune at the multiplex.
