Clint Eastwood He has played many unforgettable characters throughout his career, but surely none is as unforgettable as Harry Callahan, the police inspector whom he gave life to in up to five films. The first to arrive was ‘Dirty Harry’ in 1971, while his farewell to the character came hand in hand with ‘The Blacklist’ in 1988. With Hollywood’s great predilection for squeezing the most out of any franchise, it is surprising that we have never had a sixth installment and now we are going to review the reasons for it.
The first and most obvious is that the public did not respond as well to ‘The black list’, being the first film in the saga that earned less than its predecessor. To put it in figures, ‘Sudden Impact’ amassed 67 million dollars in North American theaters alone, while ‘The Blacklist’ had to settle for 37 million. To this we must add that it was also the most expensive adventure of Harry Callahan with an estimated cost of 31 million dollars.
Times were changing and characters like Callahan are very characteristic of a specific era. It is true that Eastwood tried it again shortly after with a similar character although adjusting more to the preferences of the public at that time in ‘The Beginner’, but the result was a notable box office hit that led him to put that facet aside for good. his and focus on other projects -his next film would be the Oscar-winning ‘Sin Perdón’-.
Too old for this shit
All this also helped that there was no special interest from Warner and then it was Eastwood who put a stop to the study’s interest in bringing Harry Callahan back. The legendary actor and filmmaker commented 20 years ago that Warner had explored that possibility and he made it clear that he was too old to resume the character. In fact, he had already joked on more than one occasion with the possibility that get back into action catching bad guys using his walker.
Already in 2008 a small ray of hope appeared when Eastwood put very difficult conditions to meet in order to recover the character of Harry Callahan:
There could be a scenario. I suppose if some legendary screenwriter came out of nowhere and was the biggest thing on the planet, I’d certainly have to think about it, but it’s not like I’ve ever been courted. I think it was a time in my life and I have continued with other things. I’m not sure I’ll be Dirty Harry again, but who knows?
Of course, he himself made it clear then that “there was never a story“for the sixth installment and that with no one at the age of 78 at that time he was still a policeman, a problem that has worsened even more with the passage of time, since Eastwood will turn 93 on May 31. In fact, it is said that he is now very busy with what would be his last film as a director.
For all this, ‘Dirty Harry 6’ is impossible today, so the only alternative that Warner has is to do a reboot with another actor. The point is that the popularity of the character is so associated with Eastwood and his ideology is so from another era that it is also going to be very difficult to do something worthwhile in that way.
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