True Grit - official photographs as the release date looms ever closer

Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn and Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Rose

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The real deal

True Grit 2010 is expected to be released on the 25th December 2010 and westerns fans are hoping for a big hit for the genre - this film is either going to be magnificent or it will stink and Jeff Bridges must be applauded for having the courage to try the role made iconic by John Wayne. It doesn't matter that actors other than Wayne have already taken the role of the one eyed law-man for it will be with The Duke that the comparison will be made.

Wayne played the character twice - firstly in an Oscar winning turn in True Grit and then in the less successful sequel Rooster Cogburn AKA Rooster Cogburn and the Lady. There had been plans for a third movie but these were dropped after the less than stellar returns for the second movie. Warren Oates also played the character in a largely forgettable TV movie entitled, True Grit: A further adventure.

At one time there was even talk of a Television Series based around the exploits of the character and with Oates in the title role but the glory days of the TV western were long gone and studio chiefs wouldn't green-light the project. And when a year or so ago it was announced that the Coen brothers would be re-making the movie based on Charles Portis' book western fans were horrified.

Why can't they leave the classic alone? Was a familiar moan but the fact that the Coens, highly innovative film-makers, were behind the project and that Jeff Bridges had been cast in the title role does give strong hopes that this will turn out to be a worthy movie and may even gave the western a profile with a new generation of movie fans for whom the western has always been the genre their dads watched.

Will Bridges still be smiling after the release of the hotly anticipated re-make?

I myself am a huge fan of John Wayne and although the original True Grit is not Wayne's best western, it is a damn fine film nonetheless. Yep, it definitely deserves the "Classic"  status! So I'm eager to see True Grit 2010 - in fact, I can't remember being this excited about a forthcoming film in years. So let's all hope that True Grit makes this Christmas truly special for western fans.