Is A Remake Of The Classic TV Western 'Have Gun - Will Travel' A Good Idea?

 

I grew up watching Richard Boone as the intelligent, cool and tough gun for hire on TV in Have Gun - Will Travel.

I loved Richard Boone as Paladin as a kid and I'm watching and enjoying the old classic TV show again on Comcast's Demand Encore Channel.

Now comes word that David Mamet is planning a remake, or reboot, of the old western.

Ken Tucker at Entertainment Weekly thinks that a reboot is a great idea. I'm not so sure.

David Mamet is reportedly developing a new version of Have Gun — Will Travel for the network that first presented the series in 1957, CBS. It’s a great idea, since the central character Paladin, played by Richard Boone, is very much in the Mamet tradition of well-spoken but violent, meticulous yet profane protagonists. Take off his holster, and Paladin would have fit right in among the salesmen in Glengarry Glen Ross (Paladin is the only TV Western hero who handed out business cards) or on Mamet’s earlier CBS drama, The Unit.

Have Gun ran from 1957 to 1963, and stood in stark contrast to the most popular Westerns of that era, the squares-ville Gunsmoke and the more tongue-in-cheek Warner Bros.-produced shows such as Cheyenne and Sugarfoot. Have Gun — Will Travel signaled its break with standard TV Westerns right from its opening. Paladin, unlike other heroes, dressed in black. The first thing you saw was not the man but his gun and holster, the latter embossed with a white knight chess piece. You saw Paladin draw the gun, point it straight at the viewer, and heard Boone articulate a kind of credo, that he would not hesitate to kill you if you didn’t do as he said.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://watching-tv.ew.com/2012/08/22/david-mamet-have-gun-will-travel-reboot/