Richard Brautigan’s 1974 novel *The Hawkline Monster: A Gothic Western* has resisted film adaptation despite attempts by Hal Ashby, Tim Burton and Yorgos Lanthimos. Its bizarre combination of western, horror and surreal fantasy makes it artistically intriguing but exceptionally difficult to translate into a coherent screenplay.

The story follows two hired guns recruited to kill a monster beneath a house, before veering into scientific experiments, shrinking people, hostile beams of light and other absurdities. Ashby considered actors including Jack Nicholson, Jeff Bridges and Harry Dean Stanton; Burton later imagined Nicholson alongside Clint Eastwood, while Lanthimos enlisted Tony McNamara, but each effort ultimately stalled over the source material’s chaotic structure and unconventional style.