The most megalomaniacal Western of all time lost millions, ended an entire era and is now celebrated as a masterpiece

There are flops that stay on everyone’s lips for months. Flops that send careers into decline or cause heated debates. The Western Heaven’s Gate does not belong in these categories. It exists in its own dimension of failure. His flop destroyed an entire film studio and banned westerns from cinemas and ushered in a new Hollywood era that placed strict limits on a director’s megalomania. It is available to stream on Amazon Prime.

On Amazon Prime: There were no rules for Heaven’s Gate

Heaven’s Gate tells the true story of the Johnson County War at the end of the 19th century, in which wealthy US ranchers wanted to massacre a group of settlers, while the regional government watched in silence.

Check out the English trailer for Heaven’s Gate here:

In the 1970s, a group of young filmmakers had established themselves in the USA, which were later referred to as the so-called New Hollywood. In addition to Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver) and Peter Bogdanovich (Paper Moon), Michael Cimino was also counted among them thanks to the masterpiece The Going Through Hell was considered a prodigy of the movement.

For his next project Heaven’s Gate, the studio United Artists guaranteed him a creative and financial free pass. And thus marked the end of an era. The obsessive perfectionist filmmaker became completely megalomaniacal while filming.

The Heaven’s Gate shoot turned into a grotesque fever dream

At least that’s how producer Steven Bach describes it, quoting from his book Final Cut The Ringer. Cimino had over a million feet of film shot, shipped expensive timbers across the Atlantic, torn down entire film sets and rebuilt them a few inches apart because he had a bad feeling about some of the shots.

Meanwhile, the budget and delays rose to hair-raising heights. Star John Hurt (Alien) reportedly waited over a month for his scenes. Annoyed, he finished filming The Elephant Man in the meantime, only to return to the Heaven’s Gate set in time weeks later.

Eight months late and tens of millions over budget Cimino finally submitted a five-hour (!) version to the studio United Artists. The desperate producers finally convinced him to shorten the running time to two and a half hours. But it didn’t help.

The western epic failed miserably, but today appears to many in a new light

After reports of Cimino’s domineering behavior and cruel animal cruelty on set, critics waited for the film’s release with knives drawn. Heaven’s Gate was literally ripped apart in the reports. It grossed a paltry $3.5 million against its budget of $44 million, which is about $161 million today (via The Numbers ). Cimino, United Artists and the Western were finished.

It wasn’t until Dances with Wolves 10 years later that the genre slowly returned to the cinema never reached its old size again. United Artists was bought out and lost all power in Hollywood. Cimino only made four films in his life, all of them flops. Confidence in the young geniuses of New Hollywood had disappeared; in the future, blockbusters designed by the studios would take the place of their films.

In the end, the only bright spot in the catastrophe is the film itself: Heaven’s Gate is still controversial, but is now considered by many to be an unrecognized, tragic masterpiece (via AV Club). A masterpiece in an unprecedented shambles.

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