Producer Jon Peters Had Two Ridiculous Demands For Wild Wild West

Barry Sonnenfeld had one heck of a career as a director in Hollywood. In the '90s, he was hard to touch, from his work on "The Addams Family" movies to "Men in Black," it was hit after hit. Unfortunately, even the best careers hit speed bumps from time to time. Sonnenfeld hit a massive one in 1999 when he directed the infamous, expensive flop that was "Wild Wild West." While the director must always shoulder responsibility, there were many factors at play here. Perhaps none bigger in spelling the film's doom than producer Jon Peters.

/Film's Ethan Anderton recently spoke with Sonnenfeld in anticipation of his upcoming memoir "Best Possible Place, Worst Possible Time: True Stories from a Career in Hollywood," which is available for pre-order now on Amazon. During the conversation, Sonnenfeld discussed the mess that was "Wild Wild West." More specifically, the two demands that Peters made, both of which didn't serve the movie well.

"Jon Peters was insistent on two things. A giant spider. And I think we executed it well, but made it way too big in scale, and I think it took the audience out of the movie. There were many things wrong with that movie. That was one of them, the bigger issue, Jon Peter's total insistence on that kind of helped ruin the movie, Jon Peter's insisted that there that Will Smith be in drag and that scene is so horrible, and it was so expensive, and we had to build this giant set for it. Will didn't want to do it. I didn't want it done. And it was just one of the many reasons that Wild Wild West is one of my least favorite movies as a director."

That giant spider has become something of an infamous Hollywood tale, in no small part thanks to a killer story told many times by director Kevin Smith. In short, Peters had been trying to get a giant spider on screen for years, dating back to Smith's crack at the screenplay for the failed "Superman Lives." The idea persisted for a long time, with Peters eventually sneaking into Sonnenfeld's ill-fated, big-budget Western.

For those who may need a refresher, the film takes place in the late 1800s and centers on a war hero named West (Will Smith) who must team up with inventor Artemus Gordon (Kevin Kline) to stop the evil Dr. Arliss Loveless (Kenneth Branagh) from executing a diabolical plot that threatens the entire United States of America.

This is the movie that forced Smith to turn down "The Matrix," which became one of the most successful R-rated films in history. Instead, Smith reunited with Sonnenfeld after their work on the "Men in Black" films. It also required Smith to do the drag number for one scene, which he didn't want to do. As Sonnenfeld details in the book, it was a major headache behind the scenes.

"As unfortunate as Will Smith playing the straight man in a comedy was, the third act was saddled with the very embarrassing Will Smith female impersonator strip tease Jon Peters had insisted on. It was truly horrible. 'If I don't have Will Smith in drag, I have no movie,' I can imagine Peters screaming to Bob Daly and Terry Semel, Warner Brothers co-chairs."

"Wild Wild West" proved to be a gigantic flop, earning just $222 million worldwide against a huge $175 million budget. Sonnenfeld, for his part, had no illusions. He knew things weren't working, but he was caught between an insistent producer and trying to fix a film that was getting away from him. In the book, the filmmaker explains that this all led to tension with Warner Bros.

"I was often unpolitical, short tempered, and in general a bad egg in my relations with the studio. I was angry I couldn't get rid of Jon Peters, angry I was spending millions of dollars on a huge set for a bad Will Smith in drag scene, and furious I was in a position of responsibility but had to defer to Peters on the script. Coming off the successes of Addams Family Values, Get Shorty, and Men in Black, I was deeply depressed I was working on a bad movie I didn't know how to fix."

"Best Possible Place, Worst Possible Time: True Stories from a Career in Hollywood" released on October 1, 2024.