To write a film about aliens invading the Wild West, you’ve got to be a bit of a believer.
When asked if aliens exist, ‘Cowboys & Aliens’ writer and producer Roberto Orci perked up.
“I think the evidence clearly indicates that the government’s lying about what the hell’s going on,” Orci joked to TheWrap on the red carpet ahead of the movie’s premiere on Saturday at Comic-Con in San Diego.
Also read: Comic-Con: ‘Cowboys & Aliens’ Stars Hit the Red Carpet (Slideshow)
The film stars Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig and Olivia Wilde in an unusual adventure story about a gunslinger who leads an uprising against alien invaders. In Orci’s story, a spaceship arrives in Arizona in 1873, to take over the earth, and a posse of cowboys are all that stand in their way.
According to Orci, ‘Cowboys & Aliens’ is not the first film to blend two classic American genres. “Star Wars” was a Wild West tale set in space.
“They’ve been together,” he told TheWrap. “You’ve seen Star Wars, how did you meet Harrison Ford the first time around? He’s a gunslinger in a saloon. And Star Trek — how is that pitched? As a wagon train to the stars.
“So in a way this movie is being honest about it from the very beginning. We’re literally calling it ‘Cowboys & Aliens’ and we’re not hiding it.”
See TheWrap’s full Comic-Con coverage here.
The film’s co-producer Scott Mitchell Rosenberg isn’t hiding his extraterrestrial proclivities either. He told TheWrap that out of the millions and billions of planets in our universe, we’d be selfish to think we were the only living creatures.
“I don’t give it much thought,” reflected Abigail Spencer, who plays Alice in the film. But I definitely am open to the idea.”
Meanwhile, 13-year-old Noah Ringer told TheWrap that he’s ready to take a break after working on two major motion pictures in the last few years.
Ringer plays young sheriff’s son Emmett Taggart in the Western sci-fi picture.Ringer starred as Aang in M. Night Shymalan’s “The Last Airbender,” a young member of the Avatar lineage who must put his childhood on the back-burner in order to stop the Fire Nation destroying Earth, Water, and Wind, where he was able to gain notoriety despite the film’s lackluster reception.
But in real life, Ringer is holding on to his childhood for at least a little longer.
“I’m just gonna be a normal kid, have a great summer and see what happens from there,” he told TheWrap.
Not the normal itinerary of a 13-year-old, Ringer walked the Comic-Con red carpet Saturday alongside the likes of Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig for the “Cowboys & Aliens” premiere. The cast finished filming last year.
“Just being with them every day they’ve become like family,” Ringer told TheWrap.
‘Cowboys & Aliens,’ which wrapped up filming last year, hits theaters July 29.