How The Good, The Bad & The Ugly 2 Would’ve Brought Back Clint Eastwood
The Good, The Bad And The Ugly 2 almost happened in the 1980s, and here's how Clint Eastwood's Man with no Name would have featured in the story.
The unmade The Good, The Bad And The Ugly 2 would have brought back Clint Eastwood in a surprising way. Clint Eastwood had spent years on a classic western series Rawhide before landing what would turn out to be a star-making role in 1964’s A Fistful Of Dollars. This low-budget Italian western was a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo and saw Eastwood’s Man with no Name playing two gangs against each other. The movie’s style and Eastwood’s iconic turn saw the movie become a surprise success and it helped establish the spaghetti western subgenre.
The popularity of westerns began to wane during the ’60s and ’70s, and later outings usually took a darker, more cynical view of the west. Clint Eastwood’s westerns tended to be more violent, and the lines between heroes and villains were very blurred. Eastwood directed some of his most famous outings in the genre himself, including High Plains Drifter – which has a supernatural angle – Pale Rider and 1992’s acclaimed Unforgiven.
The Man with no Name is still Clint Eastwood’s most famous western antihero, and following A Fistful Of Dollars, he reprised the character twice, for 1965’s For A Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. This latter entry is actually a prequel to the events of the previous films and followed three characters hunting for buried gold against the backdrop of the American Civil War. The Good, The Bad And The Ugly is the most acclaimed of director Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy and has been hailed as a masterpiece. The movie ends with Eastwood’s “Blondie” riding off with half of the gold, and co-writer Luciano Vincenzoni later revealed he had plans to make The Good, The Bad And The Ugly 2, with Clint Eastwood returning as narrator.
For context, The Good, The Bad And The Ugly ends with Eastwood’s Man with No Name having killed Lee Van Cleef’s Angel Eyes and seeming to leave Eli Wallach’s Tuco to hang. In the final moments, he shoots Tuco’s noose to free him, with Tuco cursing out Eastwood’s character as he rides away. Vincenzoni’s The Good, The Bad And The Ugly 2 was to take place 20 years later, with Tuco tracking down the grandson of Blondie for the gold. Reportedly, Clint Eastwood – who has directed many movies – was interested in serving as narrator for a potential The Good, The Bad And The Ugly 2, though it’s unknown if the Man with No Man would have actually appeared in the story.
Sadly, there’s little solid information available on The Good, The Bad And The Ugly 2, including when it was being developed, though the late ’80s seems likely. Vincenzoni confirmed Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach were interested in returning too, and it appears Joe Dante was being courted as director. It was Leone who killed The Good, The Bad And The Ugly 2, as he didn’t want any more sequels to happen or his name linked to it. Vincenzoni put this down to a rift between the two men, but without Leone’s consent, The Good, The Bad And The Ugly 2 quickly died. It’s hard to know if the sequel could have worked without Clint Eastwood (who turned down Superman 1978) as the main character, though it certainly would have been intriguing to see what happened next.
