Comic artist Jackson "Butch" Guice shared three pages of an unreleased comic adaptation to 1999's Wild Wild West, directed by Barry Sonnenfeld and starring Will Smith and Salma Hayek. Along with the post came a story of how that same comic was canceled mid-development due to an unintentional mistake -- Will Smith didn't give the okay for the artists to use his likeness.
Guice elaborated on DC's interest in releasing a comic book adaptation of Wild Wild West, noting that a comic inspired by a western art theme is quite unique so being able to work on the project was exciting for him.
"DC COMICS enlisted Chuck Dixon (and if memory serves, Scott Beatty) and myself to do a comic adaptation of the upcoming film," he wrote. "I seem to remember it getting a bit of a late start (as these sort of projects often do), so this was a hit the ground running assignment," Guice says. "As best as I recall, I believe roughly the first eight to twelve pages of the assignment had been completed when word arrived from on high to immediately stop."
"It seems in the rush to get the work underway it had gone unnoticed by those who keep track of such things that the star of the movie, Will Smith, had failed to sign the contract allowing his likeness to be used in the comic," he continued. "Long story short, Smith ultimately chose not to sign the deal and DC chose to cancel the project in mid-stride, obviously hesitant to release a movie tie-in with the lead character in the comic looking distinctly different from the star of the same film."
While the project had plenty of potential, not all was lost to Guice, Dixon and Beatty, as DC still compensated the creative team for their work.
"My sometimes faulty memory tells me they actually paid us for the project in full since we were being unfairly affected by outside circumstances," Guice wrote. "I long ago got rid of, sold or lost any art relating to the project and had pretty much forgotten both the film and the comic entirely until I saw a mention of the movie last night. I went looking online this morning but could find only three images relating to the work that had been completed for the comic -- a single page and two of the character designs I had produced for official approval to be artist on the project."
The accompanying images depict an action scene and profile drawings of Smith's character James West and Frederique Van Der Wal's as the Amazonia.
While it's a shame the comic book adaptation of the movie never came to fruition, it's interesting that it even existed and had the potential to be its own series or inspire other future western-themed comics.