Kevin Costner's 1994 Western epic "Wyatt Earp" is now streaming for free in the United States, offering fans a chance to revisit a passion project the actor later expressed some regret about. The film arrived during a turbulent stretch of Costner's career, sandwiched between the runaway success of "Dances with Wolves" and later high-profile flops such as "The Postman" and "Waterworld", and it marked one half of an early dueling-movies phenomenon that predated more famous rival-release clashes like Armageddon versus Deep Impact.

Directed by veteran Star Wars writer Lawrence Kasdan, the film took a character-study approach rather than a conventional shoot-'em-up, but underperformed at the box office, grossing around $55 million against a budget of more than $60 million. It was released just months after a rival Wyatt Earp film starring Kurt Russell, "Tombstone", which cost far less to make (around $25 million) yet earned more (over $70 million), overshadowing Costner's more ambitious take on the same historical figure.