Michael Biehn, who played Johnny Ringo in *Tombstone*, says Kurt Russell was crucial to rescuing the Western after writer-director Kevin Jarre was dismissed several weeks into filming. Biehn argues that Jarre’s unwillingness to collaborate created a major production crisis, and that Russell helped decide how to reshape the film so it could be completed. The account highlights the extent to which the finished, popular film emerged from difficult behind-the-scenes compromises.

Jarre had completed the production’s pre-production work and filmed for four weeks before being fired, leaving a 142-page script that Biehn estimated could have made a two-and-a-half-hour film. Russell worked with writer and producer Jim Jacks over a weekend to remove about 40 pages, concentrating on essential material and reducing subplots, including Russell’s character’s romance with Dana Delany’s. Biehn said the cuts particularly reduced material involving the Cowboys, whose lives outside their conflicts with the Earps were largely omitted.