Crichton said pre-production was difficult. MGM demanded script changes up to the first day of shooting and the leads were not signed until 48 hours before shooting began. Crichton said he had no control over casting

Principal photography

The film was shot in 30 days. To save time, Crichton tried to shoot only what was needed, with minimal takes. Westworld was filmed in several locations, including the Mojave Desert, the gardens of the Harold Lloyd Estate, several MGM sound stages and on the MGM backlot, one of the final films to be shot there before the backlot was sold to real estate developers and demolished. It was filmed with Panavision anamorphic lenses by Gene Polito.

Richard Benjamin later said he loved making the film:

The Gunslinger's appearance is based on Chris Adams, Brynner's character from The Magnificent Seven. The two characters' costumes are nearly identical. According to Lazarus, Yul Brynner agreed to play the role for only $75,000 ($), because he needed the money. The original script and original ending of the movie culminated in a fight between Martin and the Gunslinger, which resulted in the Gunslinger being torn apart by a rack. Crichton said he "had liked the idea of a complex machine being destroyed by a simple machine" but when attempting it, "it seemed stagey and foolish", so the idea was dropped. He also wanted to open the film with shots of a hovercraft traveling over the desert but was unable to get the effect he wanted within a limited budget, so this was dropped as well.

Post-production

In the published screenplay, Crichton explained how he re-edited the first cut of the movie because he was depressed by how long and boring it was. Scenes that were deleted from the rough cut include a bank robbery and sales room sequences, an opening with a hovercraft flying above the desert, additional and longer dialogue scenes, more scenes with robots attacking and killing guests including a scene where one guest is tied down to a rack and is killed when his arms are pulled out, a longer chase scene with the Gunslinger chasing Peter and one where the Gunslinger cleans his face with water after Peter throws acid on him. Crichton's assembly cut featured a different ending that included a fight between the Gunslinger and Peter and an alternate death scene in which the Gunslinger was killed on a rack. Once the film was completed on time, MGM authorized the shooting of some extra footage. A television commercial to open the film was added; because there was a writers' strike in Hollywood at the time, this was written by Steven Frankfurt, a New York advertising executive.

Digital image processing

Westworld was the first feature film to use digital image processing. Crichton originally went to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena but after learning that two minutes of animation would take nine months and cost $200,000, he contacted John Whitney Sr., who in turn recommended his son John Whitney Jr. The latter went to Information International, Inc., where they could work at night and complete the animation faster and cheaper. Whitney Jr. digitally processed motion picture photography at Information International, Inc. to appear pixelized to portray the Gunslinger android's point of view. The resulting coarse pixel matrix was output back to film. The process was covered in the American Cinematographer article "Behind the scenes of Westworld" and in a 2013 New Yorker online article.

Reception

Box office

The film was released on an experimental regional saturation basis It earned $4 million in rentals in the US and Canada by the end of 1973. After a re-release in 1976, it earned $7,365,000.

Book tie-in

Crichton's original screenplay was released as a mass-market paperback in conjunction with the film.

Critical response

Variety described the film as excellent, saying that it "combines solid entertainment, chilling topicality, and superbly intelligent serio-comic story values". Vincent Canby of the New York Times wrote that Crichton had made "a creditable debut as a film director", but "Crichton the director seems to have had more fun with the film than Crichton the writer, whose screenplay can offer us no better explanation for the sudden, bloody robot rebellion than an epidemic of 'central mechanism psychosis.'" Gene Siskel gave the film three stars out of four, calling the first half "exciting and provocative" but thinking much less of the second half which he thought deteriorated into an "illogical and meandering chase story. It is difficult to believe the same man wrote both halves of the film." Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times called it "a clever sci-fi fantasy ... with enough ingenuity and conviction to make it a successful diversion for those seeking novel rather than sophisticated entertainment." Jean M. White of the Washington Post wrote that "Crichton spends too much time establishing his robot world and short-circuits suspense with long, arid stretches of Grade B Western."

The film has a rating of 83% "Fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes based on 46 reviews. The site's consensus states: "Yul Brynner gives a memorable performance as a robotic cowboy in this amusing sci-fi/western hybrid." Reviewing the DVD release in September 2008, The Daily Telegraph reviewer Philip Horne described the film as a "richly suggestive, bleakly terrifying fable—and Brynner's performance is chillingly pitch-perfect."

American Film Institute lists

  • AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills – Nominated
  • AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains:
  • Robot Gunslinger – Nominated Villain
  • AFI's 10 Top 10 – Nominated Science Fiction Film

After making the film, Crichton took a year off. "I was intensely fatigued by Westworld", he said later. "I was pleased but intimidated by the audience reaction. ... The laughs are in the wrong places. There was extreme tension where I hadn't planned it. I felt the reaction, and maybe the picture, was out of control." His real intention was to warn against corporate greed.

For him the picture marked the end of "about five years of science fiction/monster pictures for me".

Network television airings

Westworld was first aired on NBC television on February 28, 1976. The network aired a slightly longer version of the film than was shown in theaters or subsequently released on home video. Some of the extra scenes that were added for the United States television version are:

  • Brief fly-by exterior shot of the hovercraft zooming just a few feet above the desert floor. In the theatrical version, all scenes involving the hovercraft were interior shots only.
  • The scenes with the scientists having a meeting in the underground complex was much longer, giving more insight into their "virus" problem with the robots.
  • A scene of technicians talking in the locker room about the work load of each robot world.
  • There was a longer discussion between Peter and the sheriff after his arrest when he shot the Gunslinger.
  • A scene in Medieval World in which a guest is tortured on the rack, which appears in the theatrical version only as a still image, was restored.
  • The Gunslinger's chase of Peter through the three worlds was also extended.

Subsequent works

Sequel film

A sequel, Futureworld, was filmed in 1976, and produced by American International Pictures, and only distributed by MGM. Only Brynner returned from the original cast to reprise his Gunslinger character (in a dream sequence, as well as footage recapping the original), though it did provide details regarding the carnage: more than 50 guests killed and 95 staff members killed or wounded. Fred Karlin returned as composer.

1980 television series

Four years later, in 1980, the CBS television network aired a short-lived television series, Beyond Westworld, "which took the Futureworld concept of android doppelgangers, but ignored the movie itself, harking back to Westworld" with new characters. Its poor ratings caused it to be canceled after only three of the five episodes aired. Only sound designer Richard S. Church was retained from the movie.

2013 television series

In August 2013, it was announced that HBO had ordered a pilot for a Westworld TV series, to be produced by J. J. Abrams, Jonathan Nolan, and Jerry Weintraub. Nolan and his wife Lisa Joy were set to write and executive produce the series, with Nolan directing the pilot episode. Production began in July 2014 in Los Angeles. The new series premiered October 2, 2016. On April 22, 2020, the series was renewed for a fourth season, which premiered on June 26, 2022.

Video game

In 1996, Westworld 2000, a video game sequel to the film, was released by Byron Preiss Multimedia.

Potential remake

Beginning in 2002, trade publications reported that a Westworld remake starring Arnold Schwarzenegger was in production, and would be written by Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines screenwriters Michael Ferris and John Bracanto. Tarsem Singh was originally slated to direct, but left the project. Quentin Tarantino was approached, but turned it down. On January 19, 2011, Warner Bros announced that plans for the remake were still active. As of 2026, the film has reset development, this time with David Koepp as writer.

Legacy

Crichton used similar plot elements—a high-tech amusement park running amok and a central control paralyzed by a power failure—in his bestselling novel Jurassic Park.

Westworld contains a reference to a computer virus, one of the earliest mentions of them in fiction. The analogy is made by the Chief Supervisor in a staff meeting where the spread of malfunctions across the park is discussed.

See also

  • List of cult films

References

  • Westworld at AllMovie