Once Upon a Time in Texas, or “If at first you don’t succeed…”

Writer-director-actor Tanner Beard got up one day and looked at his 2011 movie The Legend of Hell’s Gate: An American Conspiracy, and decided it needed another look. Fifteen years after its original release he gave his Western a complete overhaul, and it’s got a much better name–Once Upon a Time in Texas. And why not? Call it audacious. Call it chutzpah. George Lucas shouldn’t be the only guy who gets to take a second look at his creations. This “director’s cut” has the potential for a lot of fun, because it stars Haven’s Eric Balfour, Firefly’s Summer Glau, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial star Henry Thomas, Vikings’ Clive Standen, Supernatural’s Jim Beaver, Daredevil: Born Again’s Lou Taylor Pucci, the always everywhere Glenn Morshower, and Longmire and Dark Skies’s Zahn McClarnon. We last saw the charismatic Balfour in The Offer, and… why isn’t he in every other series?

When you watch the trailer for Beard’s revamped, renamed movie, your first thought’s going to be, “They all look so young.” The movie looks like it was made 15 years ago and then shelved, only to be released now, although it did have an initial release that was missed by most of us. But hey, that’s Balfour in his Haven years. And that’s McClarnon before Longmire.

Check out this cool trailer for the old-is-new-again Western, Tanner Beard’s Once Upon a Time in Texas:

Here’s some of the publicity from the distributor:

“Fifteen years later, I had the opportunity to go back into this world with everything I’ve learned as a filmmaker since we made the original. This stopped being a restoration pretty quickly. We were shooting new scenes, bringing characters back, rebuilding the sound and music and finding an entirely new rhythm for the story. Once Upon a Time in Texas became the movie I always knew was hiding somewhere inside this legend. My 25 year old self got to collaborate with my 40 year old self to bring this story to life the way I always meant for it to be seen.” — Tanner Beard

Set across two eras of the American West, the film follows Isaac McKinnon, whose search for his long-lost brother takes him from San Francisco in 1905 back to Texas in 1876, where he becomes entangled in a violent chain of betrayals, gunfights and events destined to become frontier legend. Along the way, documented history collides with Western mythology as figures including Doc Holliday, Bass Reeves, Belle Starr, Jesse James, John St. Helens and Sam Bass emerge within a story where the line between what happened and what was passed down through generations begins to disappear.

Once Upon a Time in Texas will have a limited run in theaters beginning October 16, 2026, and a video-on-demand home release November 17, 2026.

C.J. Bunce / Editor / borg