Released at the very end of 1993, Tombstone arrived as the first of two back-to-back movies about legendary Wild West lawman Wyatt Earp. A competing film, simply called Wyatt Earp, directed by Lawrence Kasdan and starring Kevin Costner, followed six months later in mid-1994. Much publicity was raised in the entertainment press at the time about this battle of the Hollywood Westerns, with some pundits predicting that Costner’s star power would win the day. In the final tally, the opposite proved true. Tombstone was decidedly the more successful project, and remains so today.
Over the following few decades, Kasdan’s Wyatt Earp has been mostly forgotten, whereas Tombstone has stayed a popular home video staple. In the wake of supporting star Val Kilmer’s death, it’s also remembered as one of the actor’s best performances.
| Title: | Tombstone |
| Year of Release: | 1993 |
| Directors: | George P. Cosmatos Kevin Jarre (uncredited) Kurt Russell (uncredited) |
| Watched On: | 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray |
| Also Available On: | Blu-ray AMC+ Hulu Various VOD rental and purchase platforms |
The other thing Tombstone is well-known for, unfortunately, is the behind-the-scenes turmoil that afflicted its production. The film began shooting with screenwriter Kevin Jarre at the helm for what was intended to be his directorial debut. Reportedly overwhelmed by the job, Jarre fell behind schedule and was fired by the producers. The studio then brought in George P. Cosmatos (of Cobra and Rambo: First Blood Part II) to finish the shoot. Cosmatos took full credit for the final product. However, star Kurt Russell has claimed that he in fact directed much of the movie himself, by planning out the filming each day while Cosmatos acted as a proxy on set. That Cosmatos was known to have performed a similar role for Sylvester Stallone on Rambo would seem to lend that story some credence. In the end, fans may never fully know exactly how much of the movie was directed by each of these three individuals. With all this going on, the fact that the film turned out even remotely coherent is almost a minor miracle.
“Remotely coherent” may actually be a fair assessment for Tombstone. The finished work is a patchy affair, with a lot of narrative gaps, storylines that lead nowhere, and an abundance of characters (many played by notable actors) who either pop in for brief walk-ons or just get forgotten halfway through. Remarkably, the whole thing is entertaining enough that most of those problems can be brushed aside.
Unlike the Kasdan and Costner version, Tombstone doesn’t attempt to tell Earp’s entire life story, but instead focuses solely on the (admittedly, most famous) chapter of it that took place in the title town. The film opens in 1879. Having made a name for himself as an assistant marshal in Dodge City, Kansas, Wyatt Earp (Russell) heads west to Arizona with brothers Virgil (Sam Elliott) and Morgan (Bill Paxton) in tow. Despite his reputation preceding him, Wyatt considers himself retired and has no interest in taking up law enforcement again. He immediately sets himself up with a stake in a local casino and intends to build a fortune for his family, only to have those plans disrupted by a local roughneck element.
Still primarily a rowdy frontier town, Tombstone was thriving at that moment due to its proximity to local silver mines and had ambitions to grow into the next great American metropolis – ambitions that would dry up a few years later when the mines proved unsustainable and the price of silver collapsed. In the meantime, its brief boom has attracted all manner of disreputable sorts to the region. The most problematic of them are a notorious gang known as The Cowboys, led by the hot-headed Curly Bill Brocious (Powers Boothe) and the cold-blooded Johnny Ringo (Michael Biehn). With the local law establishment being either incapable or too corrupt to do anything about them, the Cowboys run roughshod over the town, causing so much trouble that, eventually, Wyatt and his brothers reluctantly return to work as peace officers. This decision of course inevitably leads to the legendary gunfight at the O.K. Corral, followed by what can only be described as Wyatt leading a holy war to purge every single member of the Cowboys from existence on this mortal coil.
Kurt Russell brings plenty of charisma to the role of Wyatt, backed up by fine work from Elliott, Paxton, Boothe, Biehn, and a frankly oversized cast of supporting players filled by recognizable faces, including: Billy Bob Thornton, Michael Rooker, Dana Delaney, Joanna Pacula, Stephen Lang, Terry O’Quinn, Dana Wheeler-Nicholson, Paula Malcomson, Thomas Hayden Church, Jason Priestley, Billy Zane, John Corbett, and more I’ve probably already forgotten. Even screen legend Charlton Heston makes a cameo, and Robert Mitchum does some voiceover narration at the beginning and end. Most of these characters wind up short-changed with insufficient screen time or narrative purpose to be in the movie at all.
Stealing the rug out from under all this talent is Val Kilmer, playing Wyatt’s good friend “Doc” Holliday – a degenerate gambler, drunk, sarcastic bon vivant, and perhaps one of the greatest gunslingers who ever lived. Even weakened and dying from tuberculosis, Holliday is a vibrant character and great fun to be around. Kilmer plays the hell out of the role, bringing precisely the right measure of flamboyant charm without going too far over the top. He also gets to deliver almost all of the movie’s most memorable dialogue.
All told, Tombstone is a flawed and somewhat scattershot B-movie Western, but it’s very entertaining (decidedly more so than Kasdan’s effort) and still has a lot of replay value decades down the road.
The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray
Tombstone was originally a production of Buena Vista Pictures, a subsidiary of Disney. The latter released the movie on DVD back in the day in both its theatrical cut and an extended version labeled the “Director’s Cut” (Cosmatos apparently being the director in question) that added about five minutes of extra footage to plug some of the plot holes. Unfortunately, that Director’s Cut came as part of a Vista Series DVD package notorious for the video transfer’s terrible edge enhancement artifacts. I still have that disc, and it looks pretty ghastly.
Disney’s later Blu-ray edition in 2010 reverted back to the theatrical cut. Unfortunately, when I heard that the disc still had the same edge enhancement problem as the DVD, I elected not to buy it and simply skipped owning the movie during most of the Blu-ray era.
Disney finally remastered the film for 4K in 2025. Physical media distribution in the United States was licensed out to Sony Pictures, which issued it on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray in April 2025, available (so far) only in a limited edition SteelBook package that very quickly sold out from most retailers and is currently selling for exaggerated prices on eBay. I hear more copies may be pressed in the future.
Failing to acquire that, I learned that Disney also released the film under its own label in the UK, on a 4K Ultra HD disc packaged in a regular keepcase with slipcover. Even in these times of consumer-unfriendly tariffs, I paid less for the import than I would have for the domestic edition. I can live without the SteelBook.
The 4K Ultra HD once again contains only the movie’s theatrical cut. I assume that the Original Camera Negative is conformed to that version of the movie, and the Director’s Cut was created on video from that awful Vista Series transfer. The UK UHD is also accompanied by a copy of the previous Blu-ray release from 2010. I’m told that the American release comes with a remastered Blu-ray from the 4K restoration. I’m a little disappointed I didn’t get that.
Scanning through it, the 2010 Blu-ray doesn’t look quite as bad as the old DVD, but definitely still has a lot of problematic areas. Expand the following screenshots to full size using the links in the caption, and take a look at the ugly edge halos around the jackets worn by Kurt Russell (far left) and Jon Tenney (center right, holding the walking stick). The halos may be slightly less intense on the Blu-ray, but they haven’t gone away. The larger your screen, the worse this will look on it.
From what I can tell, that problem is entirely rectified in the new remaster, but regrettably I don’t have the ability to take 4K screenshots yet. Regardless, I didn’t notice any edge enhancement during my viewing. The 2.40:1 image is a big improvement over the Blu-ray. It may not be the sharpest picture I’ve seen in 4K, but it’s well-detailed and has light, unobtrusive grain. Colors are a little ruddy, which may be intentional.
On the other hand, the HDR grading runs a little dark, especially in interior scenes and shadows, where black details appear crushed. Fortunately, much of the movie takes place in the bright sunlight.
The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack seems to be ported over from the Blu-ray. The track can be very powerful at times, notably the tromping horse hooves and thunderous gunfire during the action scenes. The score has decent swell, but sounds a little lacking in the mid-range to my ears. Much of the middle of the movie sounds somewhat flat compared to the beginning or the end, where it amps up considerably for the famous showdown at the O.K. Corral and the ensuing aftermath.
The 4K disc has no bonus features. A very light selection of extras can be found on the 2010 Blu-ray: a half-hour making-of featurette, some storyboards, and a few trailers and TV spots. Some other items from the Vista Series DVD, including an audio commentary by George Cosmatos, never made the transition to newer formats.
Related
- George P. Cosmatos (director)
- Kurt Russell
- Val Kilmer
- Michael Biehn
- Sam Elliott
- Bill Paxton
- Powers Boothe
- Billy Bob Thornton
Note: Except where otherwise noted, screenshots on this page were taken from the Blu-ray edition of the film and are used for illustration purposes only.
The Video File Blog 
If you go and listen to the Michael Biehn episode of “Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum” they talk a lot about Tombstone. Its really interesting.
LikeLiked by 1 person