Carried at arm's length against all odds by a Kevin Costner who signed his first production, "Dance with the Wolves", broadcast on France 3, has become a classic. Did you know that there is a sequel written and envisioned for a time in film?
Pathé Distribution It is an understatement to say that Kevin Costner struck hard with Dancing with the Wolves, his first film as a director, broadcast on January 7 on France 3. A project that he carried at arm's length, and even going there out of pocket, faced with the initial budget overrun. A project that also aroused mocking comments in the halls of the Majors in Hollywood. Rumors then circulated about Dancing with the Wolves, such as "the film will be another disappointing western" or "yet another western which costs the eyes of the head"; a reference to the painful, never-digested memory of the bitter failure of Michael Cimino's Door to Heaven, which exploded its initial budget and ruined the United Artists. These rumors even became an expression to designate Costner's film as "Kevin's Door" ... Beyond these scathing comments, the western was considered at that time to be a genre that was long dead and buried.
But the actor-filmmaker held on, and was crowned by a shower of Oscars, including that of Best Film. It was historic, by the way: the previous western to win an Oscar for best film was The Rush to the West with Richard Dix, released in 1931.
The film is actually based on a script written by Michael Blake. The latter had written a first screenplay in the early 80s. When Kevin Costner heard about it, he suggested to Blake to instead turn this writing into a novel, to increase his chances of making a film. The writer - novelist followed his advice, and eventually found a publisher in 1988. Costner immediately bought the rights to the book for the cinema, in order to direct Dancing with the wolves.
What few people know, outside of insider circles of course, is that Blake wrote a sequel to the (mis) adventures of Lieutenant John Dunbar, in the form of a novel titled The Holy Road, and published in 2001. Taking place eleven years after the events of Dancing with the wolves, John Dunbar is still married to Raised with the Fist (played by Mary McDonnell in the film), and have three children. His partner and one of his children are kidnapped by a group of White Rangers, forcing Dance with Wolves to mount an expedition / rescue operation.
In 2007, Blake wrote a screenplay adapting this novel for an upcoming film. Costner, who has always refused to follow up, declined the offer. Anyway, Blake plancha on a 3rd novel on the saga of John Dunbar / Dance with the Wolves, entitled The Great Mystery, but he died in 2015 and was unable to complete this project.
Note also, if you have never seen it, that there is a long version of Dancing with the wolves, released a year after the cinema version, in certain theaters. This new 236-minute cut re-establishes nearly an hour of scenes that had been removed for its original release. The specialized site Movie Censorship counted no less than 64 modifications on this long version, which really changes the feature film in depth, between offbeat scenes, extended scenes, sometimes shortened scenes, new scenes (no less than 38!) ... This version was notably edited in DVD in 2003, and also available on Blu-ray.
