--- title: A Million Ways to Die in the West Box Office Report: Westerns Decline description: Seth MacFarlane is the latest Hollywood power player to learn that the "American genre" has long lost its box-office appeal canonical: https://time.com/2807521/a-million-ways-to-die-in-the-west-box-office/ author: Richard Corliss article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-06-02T14:25:21.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T08:09:14.530Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: A Million Ways to Die in the West Box Office Report: Westerns Decline og:description: Seth MacFarlane is the latest Hollywood power player to learn that the "American genre" has long lost its box-office appeal og:url: https://time.com/2807521/a-million-ways-to-die-in-the-west-box-office/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2aefd0bf0d6f686d/69869113169ab074b02797f1/5693_d028_00275_00279r_comp.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: A Million Ways to Die in the West og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: A Million Ways to Die in the West Box Office Report: Westerns Decline twitter:description: Seth MacFarlane is the latest Hollywood power player to learn that the "American genre" has long lost its box-office appeal twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2aefd0bf0d6f686d/69869113169ab074b02797f1/5693_d028_00275_00279r_comp.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # A Chilling Way to Die at the Box Office: Make a Western by [Richard Corliss](/author/richard-corliss/) ## Richard Corliss Jun 2, 2014 2:25 PM CUT  Lorey Sebastian—© Universal Pictures by [Richard Corliss](/author/richard-corliss/) ## Richard Corliss Jun 2, 2014 2:25 PM CUT For Seth MacFarlane, the weekend box-office numbers were brutal. His _A Million Ways to Die in the West_ earned just $17.1 million, or less than a quarter of the estimated $70 million gleaned by Disney’s _Maleficent_ — and less than a third of the $54.4-million opening for MacFarlane’s own _Ted_ two summers ago. His new comedy also failed to reach the modest predictions, in the mid-to-upper $20 millions, of the industry’s blogging touts. What went wrong? A few obvious things. Instead of _Ted_‘s reliable marquee name Mark Wahlberg, as the guy whose best friend was a toy bear with an R-rated mouth, MacFarlane made himself the star for his first visible leading movie role. _A Million Ways to Die_ received mostly negative reviews from the critics, and a poor “B” rating from the CinemaScore survey of early attendees. But MacFarlane’s main crime? He dared to make a Western. **(READ: Corliss’s** [**review of** **_A Million Ways to Die in the West_**](http://time.com/122945/a-million-ways-to-die-in-the-west-movie-review/ "undefined")**)** Throughout the movies’ golden age, the Western enriched Hollywood financially and artistically. But in the 1970s, the genre lost its audience appeal to fantasy films of the _Star Wars_ stripe, which told more or less the same story — elemental animosities leading to an armed showdown — but at a faster tempo, and in outer space. The spectacle of men in kerchief and boots hanging around a seedy 19th-century town waiting to shoot or be shot suddenly seemed painfully slow. Directors still love Westerns, and when they’ve won their patrons’ trust with a big hit, they often use that favor to make one. But Westerns often carry high production budgets; and this quintessentially American genre doesn’t often attract moviegoers abroad, where the box-office gravy is. [Of Westerns released in the past decade](http://www.boxofficemojo.com/genres/chart/?id=western.htm "undefined"), the one unqualified success is [Quentin Tarantino’s _Django Unchained_](http://entertainment.time.com/2012/12/12/django-unchained-tarantino-frees-the-slaves/ "undefined"). Made for about $100 million, it earned $425.4 million worldwide, 62% of that coming from foreign markets. [The Coen brothers’ _True Grit_](http://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,2039471,00.html "undefined") remake was a domestic hit ($171.2 million) that tanked internationally ($81 million), but the movie cost less than $40 million to produce, so we’ll call that a success, too. After that, the results are mixed to bad. **(READ:** [**Is the Movie Western Too Tough to Die?**](http://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1664187,00.html "undefined")**)** Recent flop Westerns include [_Cowboys & Aliens_](http://entertainment.time.com/2011/07/28/cowboys-aliens-review/ "undefined") ($163 million budget, $174.8 million worldwide gross) and [Johnny Depp’s _The Lone Ranger_](http://entertainment.time.com/2013/07/02/the-lone-ranger-lost-in-a-western-myth/ "undefined") ($215 million budget, $260.5 million worldwide). Keep in mind that the producing studios often spend $100 million to promote a movie, and that little more than half of its total gross comes back to them. So these movies — and _The Alamo_, and [Depp’s animated Western _Rango_](http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2056715,00.html "undefined"), and Brad Pitt’s _The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford_ — mostly spilled red ink. If there’s an upside for MacFarlane, it’s that he spent less making _A Million Ways_ ($40 million) than he did on _Ted_ ($50 million). So his new movie won’t lose much money. It also, alas, won’t lure audiences back to the Western. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/2807521/a-million-ways-to-die-in-the-west-box-office/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/2807521/a-million-ways-to-die-in-the-west-box-office/"},"headline":"A Chilling Way to Die at the Box Office: Make a Western","datePublished":"2014-06-02T14:25:21.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T08:09:14.530Z","description":"Seth MacFarlane is the latest Hollywood power player to learn that the \"American genre\" has long lost its box-office appeal","url":"https://time.com/2807521/a-million-ways-to-die-in-the-west-box-office/","keywords":["movies","quentin tarantino","Box-office"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2aefd0bf0d6f686d/69869113169ab074b02797f1/5693_d028_00275_00279r_comp.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Richard Corliss","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/richard-corliss/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2aefd0bf0d6f686d/69869113169ab074b02797f1/5693_d028_00275_00279r_comp.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"A Million Ways to Die in the West","caption":"A Million Ways to Die in the West","creditText":"Lorey Sebastian—© Universal Pictures","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/2807521/a-million-ways-to-die-in-the-west-box-office/","name":"A Chilling Way to Die at the Box Office: Make a Western"}}]}] ```