'Wild Wild West' director knows exactly what went wrong with Will Smith's film

It's hard to overstate how popular Will Smith was in 1999. He's still one of the biggest movie stars in the world, but in 1999 he was everywhere. After his successful sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and the hugely successful film Men in Black, Smith was one of the hottest stars ever. Oh, and his debut solo album, Big Willie Style, was a multiplatinum hit. So imagine everyone's excitement when he reteamed with Men in Black director Barry Sonnenfeld for a film reboot of the 1960s TV Western The Wild Wild West, starring Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh and Salma Hayek starred.

The hype was real, but unfortunately, Wild Wild West was a critical and box office disaster. It was a major setback in Smith's career and he later admitted that he believed it was the worst film in his entire filmography. So what happened? How could a film with this director and this cast go so wrong?

In Sonnenfeld's new memoir, “The Best Possible Place, The Worst Possible Time: True Stories from a Career in Hollywood,” the director revealed that despite the talent of the cast, there were some personality conflicts that he said ultimately weighed on the film.

In the memoir, Sonnenfeld explains that he and Smith had a great time together on Men in Black and wanted to find another project. They chose “Wild Wild West,” even though Robert Conrad, the lead actor in the TV series, had some objections. Sonnenfeld said he threatened the production with mob violence if Jim West were black. They decided to ignore Conrad and move on, but the next big trouble was that Smith was originally supposed to star opposite George Clooney and not Kevin Kline. Unfortunately, Clooney dropped out when he reportedly felt Smith had funnier lines than him.

So they brought in Kline, and that led to some serious problems. Sonnenfeld said that Kline was a “nice, talented guy” but that he only took the job because of his salary. (To be fair, Smith has said he did the same thing.) He also apparently had a falling out with his co-star Kenneth Branagh, because “both actors thought they were the greatest living Shakespearean actors.” At least Kline did.” This meant that Kline felt the need to really overdo it to portray Branagh, which led to great frustration on set. The biggest frustration? Kline just couldn't play the straight man.

Sonnenfeld noted that “the chemistry between our two leads was zero,” and he’s right. “Wild Wild West” is essentially a buddy cop movie set in the late 19th century, but the interactions between Smith and Kline are no fun. (The chemistry between them and Hayek isn't there either, despite a strange love triangle that the film tries to realize.) Sonnenfeld explained that he had to take Smith aside and talk to him about how Kline kept trying to push him into the shadows and it just had to be funny, which meant Smith now had to play the straight man. He said that Will agreed because “we don't want two funny people in our comedy and we're never going to make Kevin be the 'not funny' one,” and that was brutal.

Smith does his best work when he becomes charismatic and larger than life. So it really hurt the film to force it into a straight performance so that Kline could take the spotlight in the sidekick role. That's a real shame, because “Wild Wild West” was one of the most expensive westerns of all time and had the potential to be really great. Well, yes. At least it has a nice giant mechanical spider that has its own Hollywood story tied to Kevin Smith and Superman.